AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II

AIM: Our Trip to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich
Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport

On Wednesday afternoon we visited the tiny village of Skógar which has a rather surprisingly large museum complex and is home to a very lovely waterfall called, naturally, Skógarfoss.

Skógasafn 

This is the folk museum and it consists of both a building with artifacts but a small village of reconstructed buildings from various eras.  Here are a few things I found interesting in the folk museum.

Traditional women's clothing

Bowls with lids to keep the contents warm

From 1584, the first Bible printed in the Icelandic language

The fishing boat Petursey, which dates to 1915

A sidesaddle with a hand-woven blanket

Here are a few of the buildings from the village.  First, turf homes, which would have served as insulation during the cold winters.

Next was a cottage from the Götur farm, which was located not far from Vik (where we saw the black sand beach).  Most of the furniture is actually from a different home.  This house was built in 1896 and was owned by one of the men who worked on the fishing boat we saw earlier.  It was relocated here in 1976.

This building was constructed in 1901 as a conference hall but in 1908 when education became mandatory for children aged 10-14, it was converted to a schoolhouse.  It remained in use until 1958 and was moved to the museum at the end of the century.

(Extension cord not era-authentic!)

This farmhouse from Skál was built ca. 1920.  It has a small living area above a cowshed as well as a kitchen and a sitting room.  It was inhabited until 1970.

This church looks quite new on the outside for the simple reason that it is.  But the interior s mostly from the church of Kálfholt which is in the southern part of Iceland, a bit less than halfway between Reykjavik and Vik.  It dates to 1879.  The windows are from a church in Grof and date to 1898.  Significantly older are the bells, which were created between 1600 and 1742.  The furnishings are from the 17th and 18th centuries.

A sheriff built this house in 1878 and it was the first wooden home in the county.  It's constructed mostly of driftwood though the paneling in one room was made from the masts of a stranded French ship.

Continuing with the legends and myths theme you find in the country, there are actually home constructed for little people!  If you go, you must work to keep the legends straight because they also have trolls and hidden people and none of these groups are the same!

Transport Museum

The other building in the museum complex contained various methods of transportation and communication that had been used throughout the years in Iceland.  Some were not unfamiliar

A Model T from 1927

Skis - though those look scarier than mine

While others were completely unfamiliar to those living in the southern US.

A Citroen on runners

They even recreated a postmaster's office.

They also had a section dedicated to the evolution of the cell phone though I don't have photos of that.

Once we exited (through the gift shop, naturally), we found this crew waiting for us just over a fence next to the parking lot.  Glad to see they had a good start on their coats because they'd need them for the coming winter!