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L’Austral docked in Grundarfjorour/Grundarfjordur (pop: 974), a small town situated on the North Snæfellsnes Peninsula in West Iceland. Once a French settlement in the 1800s, fishing villas hug the scenic coast. Fishing is the chief industry in Grundarfjorour, half of the town’s working population is employed in this sector and there are many natural wonders to see. Volcanic activity is thought to have begun here about 18 million years ago, and Rauoukula i Helgrindum Volcano is about 3,000 years old.
Breakfast as usual around 6:30a and the four Tauck Tour groups were off L’Austral at spaced intervals; we left around 8:30a.
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map of Snaefellsnes Peninsula, Iceland
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Budir Church, Iceland
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inside Budir Church, Iceland
The small and picturesque black Budir Church was the first stop, rebuilt by a woman with money from Denmark in the 1800s. A church first stood here in 1703 with subsequent churches demolished, constructed, demolished again, until Budir Church was finally reconstructed one last time in 1987. There are a few valuable possessions inside and outside the church: a bell from 1672; altarpiece and other items from the 1700s.
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old altar inside Budir Church, Iceland
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Tauck Tour group inside Budir Church, Iceland
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hiking trails at Budir, Iceland
Budir is a former fishing village that was abandoned in the early Nineteenth Century and today consists of nothing more than a hotel and the beautiful black little church. It is possible to hike around the entire Snaefellsnes coast and we noticed signs pointing the way to Arnastapi and Hellnar, another stop on today’s tour. Black Budir Church is a magnet for photography groups on the peninsula and was surrounded by tripods and serious photographers in the early morning light.
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Budir Church, Iceland
I wonder how many people then take time to walk down to the only pink sand beach in Iceland through the graveyard? Some descriptions call it a “yellow sand” beach but it certainly looked pink to me. It is magnificent. The pink sand contrasted with large black and glossy volcanic rocks from the Snaefellsjokull system of volcanos, moss vegetation, little flowers and ferns; a seriously beautiful place. The light sand is mixed with broken shall, quartz fragments and rhyolite grains (rhyolite igneous rock is pink). Places where the sand has a greenish hue derives from olivine in the Budir lava.
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lava and pink sand in Budir, Iceland
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TravelsWithSheila on pink sand beach in Budir, Iceland
Around 3 kilometers/1.8 miles southwest is Frambuoir with remains of fishermen’s hut, ruins of other fishing structures and old buildings. Fishing boats rowed from here in early days, and many land owners kept boats here for centuries. During the mid Seventeenth Century, the trading center was moved east across the estuary where it operated for around 130 years.