Húsafell Summer House, Reykholt and Bonfire
[Written 31 July 2013, wayyyy behind again?!?! Why?!?! Hoooow?!?!]
[Warning: This post is loooooooong!]
Lots of unions/retirement funds/other organizational entities in Iceland own their own summer houses which they rent out to paying members for a smallish fee on a weekly basis ($150-ish for the week).
Adda and Halli, our awesome friends, are organized enough to actually apply for these summer houses and have been lucky enough to get them now two summers in a row. And super luckily for us, they’ve invited us along both times. Last year we went north to Eyjafjörður, but this year we stayed on the western side of the country, and stayed at Húsafell.
Image of the western part of Iceland. We drove from the big red blob at the bottom (Kópavogur) to the red square on right side (Husa).
We departed right after Anna finished her last horse riding session, and drove there in about two hours. That night we had dinner and got settled.
Our fancy abode for the week.
Saturday 13 July 2013
On the Saturday we went for a short drive to Reykholt to check out an annual country-market at a nearby farm. This being Iceland, we of course ran into two families we knew before we even managed to enter the market, but the camera wasn’t out of the bag yet, and they were leaving, so we have no pictures to prove it.
Hello country-market in a charming barn.
Some of the sellers were very excited to be there! 🙂
The selection of stuff was ok-ish, nothing terribly exciting, although Anna reeeeaaally wanted some trinkets. In the end we didn’t buy anything except some strawberries and tomatoes.
Anna still somewhat miffed about not getting plastic jewelry.
We walked around the farm, which seemed devoid of animals, but full of equipment in various states of disrepair.
The weather was ‘iffy’. It seemed unable to decide if it was going to rain or just be foggy. It was pretty warm though.
Jumping puddles.
Neat and tidy does it.
Safe for kids. Surely. 🙂
Informative sign is informative.
Watching our kids watching other kids play.
Bridge to a golf course.
Viking women.
They run a little coffee shop there and there were ‘Give a smile’ post-its on the wall. We didn’t eat anything there though.
Instead, we headed a few hundred yards up the road to arrive at Reykholt proper. Reykholt literally translates to ‘Smoky Hill’ due to the thermal water steaming out here and there.
They have a culture and medieval center there named after Snorri Sturluson, famed writer of old, but the entrance fee was too high for us to want to go and check it out. Instead we took a picture of the kids at the entrance to it. (And yes, the picture is crooked… it’s hard to hold the camera level with Emma on my front.)
Anna wanted the horse-cups in the gift store.
Sadly, the gift store there had a greater selection of ‘country’ stuff than the ‘country-market’ we’d just been too.
Walking around the area.
A school around the corner.
Greenery below the school. The steam next to the caterpillar-excavator down there is from thermal water in the ground.
By Snorralaug (Snorri’s pool) a ‘natural’ hot tub from olden times.
About the pool.
The pool is right next to the while building.
Awwww… olden times writing-ish.
Across a field is Varmaland, a greenhouse operation. I think they use the local thermal water to warm the houses.
Posers. (See the steam coming in from the right side?)
Posers part II.
We stopped at the local Fosshótel for some expensive cake and hot chocolate.
Chocolate cake with ice cream is awesome!
Walking back to the car.
Back at Húsafell, where there’s a small shop and restaurant.
There’s also a swimming pool, which is more like 4 hot tubs of varying sizes and temperatures. I guess they have their own thermal water reservoir because they don’t use the hot water sparingly at all.
Bjarki checking out the swimming pool/collection of hot tubs of varying sizes.
Cute small house, which is a really clever disguise for…
… pumping equipment!
Slightly better view of the pools and surrounding area. See those kids down there? Well, they’re jumping on a ‘jumping-mat’. Our kids also spent a good chunk of time there.
Walking back towards our house, we passed these mini-A-houses. They house two people sleeping. And that’s it.
‘Our house’ in comparison had two queen sized beds (almost king size), and a bunkbed with a double sized bottom. One kid had to sleep on a mattress on the floor.
Tired parent is tired. Awake child is not.
Emma looooves her playmat. We’ll be so sad when she outgrows it.
Halli reading something in the kitchen. The whole house was renovated in 2011 and was really nice. It even had a washing machine as well as a dishwasher!! 🙂 (And yes, Emma’s mostly figured out flipping from back to stomach during the drip, but still hasn’t figured out how to get back).
The kids hung out in the hot tub while some of the adults napped. This hot tub had hot water continually running into it during the whole week we were there. No chemicals needed.
After dinner, we walked a little ways to where the caretakers of the area host a bonfire and sing-along every Saturday evening.
Waiting for the clock to strike 9 pm, which is when they start lighting the fire.
The Guy, getting ready to fight the wet wood to light it on fire. The wood was soaked!
Collage of Halli, courtesy of the auto-photo-manipulator at Google+.
Hello Anna. The light was perfect for taking photos, bu the kids weren’t being terribly cooperative.
A small flame that quickly died down. This is at 21:08.
Sitting down and watching the guy attempt to light the bonfire, while two other guys performed for a sing-a-long.
Adda, Halli and kids, soon to be 7 and 9 years old.
Fire still being worked on, but getting there, while the singers in the back sing at 21:40.
The view from the other side at 21:42. There was quite a crowd there, but that was to be expected because there are a ton of summer houses there.
Bjarki working on his climbing skills.
At 21:44 the fire seems to be actually burning, finally.
Climbing kids.
Somebody was selling marshmallows and the kids got permission to buy some. Arnar brought the loot to Bjarki.
Mmmm… suuuugar.
21:48, the fire going strong.
At the marshmallow pit.
The singers singing and guitaring.
21:56, not a whole lot left of the middle bit.
Adda and Halli.
One last image of the kids warming up marshmallows.
At 22:01 I decided to head back to the house, in case Emma needed to be fed (her schedule was all over the place).
Thus concluded our first full day at Húsafell.