Seydisfjordur

From the church, walk south down Norurgata to the marked trailhead behind Vesturvegur and climb the gravel switchbacks 200 m up the slope of Brimnesfjall — a 25-minute ascent past abandoned fish-drying racks and wild thyme. At the top, five interconnected concrete domes by German artist Lukas Kuhne stand alone on the mountainside, each tuned to a note of Iceland's traditional five-tone harmony, with the painted town and the long blue fjord laid out beneath you.

Tip: Step inside the largest dome and sing one sustained note — your voice will hold in the chamber for nearly four seconds. Morning is the only window with clear sightlines down the fjord; the marine layer almost always rolls in after 14:00.

Descend the same trail and walk three blocks east along Austurvegur to the upstairs bistro of Skaftfell Center for Visual Art — a 20-minute walk down from the domes. This is the town's de facto living room: a wooden room with mismatched chairs where artists, fishermen, and ferry crews share long tables. Order the langoustine soup with sourdough (2200 ISK / €15) or the wood-fired Pizza Skaftfell topped with locally smoked lamb (2800 ISK / €19).

Tip: Soup refills are free — a quiet local custom — and the bread is baked downstairs that morning. They do not take reservations and the queue thickens after 13:30, so arrive at opening.

Head west out of town along Suurgata and pick up the river path that tracks the Fjarara upstream — a flat, 5 km walk one way along a glacial river that passes seven smaller cascades before the main fall reveals itself around a bend. Gufufoss — 'Steam Falls' — drops 30 m over a basalt step into a black gorge, and on cool afternoons the spray reaches the viewpoint as a fine mist. Seydisfjordur is the rainiest spot in Iceland; this is what all that rain becomes.

Tip: Take the unmarked right-bank scramble down to the flat rock platform ten meters from the curtain — you will get soaked, but a rainbow arcs through the spray most days between 15:00 and 17:00 when the sun is behind you.

Walk the river path back to town and cut north to the harbor — the same dock where the weekly Norraena ferry from Denmark unloads its single trickle of cars. Trace the black-sand crescent of Lonsleira beach, then wander inland through the 19th-century Norwegian merchant houses painted blood-red, mustard, and deep-ocean blue — they were shipped here in numbered timbers and reassembled on the gravel. Find the El Grillo memorial near the pier, marking the British tanker the Luftwaffe sank in this fjord in 1944, still leaking oil into the cold water.

Tip: The mustard-yellow Hotel Aldan at Norurgata 2 — the original 1900 timber building — is best photographed from across the street with the fjord behind you, low evening light raking the facade.

Two blocks south of the harbor on Norurgata, in a 1900 wooden warehouse, sits the most improbable restaurant in the country: a serious sushi bar in a fishing village of 700, working the langoustines, mackerel, and Arctic char that landed at the dock that morning. Order the langoustine nigiri (2200 ISK / €15 for two pieces) and the seared Arctic char sashimi; the twelve-piece chef's selection runs to €45 and is the meal of the trip.

Tip: Reservations are mandatory in summer — book online at least three days ahead, ideally a week. Pitfall warning: avoid the pop-up 'fish and chips' trailers that appear by the dock on ferry days charging €25 for frozen cod; locals eat at Nor Austur, Aldan, or the gas-station grill — never the harbor stalls.