Photographes à Arnarstapi

Arnarstapi is a handful of houses on a coast that seems designed shot by shot. The cliff path toward Hellnar strings together the set pieces: Gatklettur, the perfect circular stone arch with surf bursting through it; the twin basalt-columned inlets where the sea booms into caves below your feet; and arctic terns and kittiwakes wheeling off the ledges all summer — mind the terns near nests in June and July, they dive-bomb without irony. The huge stone cairn of Bárður Snæfellsás, the peninsula's half-troll guardian, gives a mythic silhouette frame against the sea, and above everything floats Snæfellsjökull, the glacier-capped volcano Jules Verne chose as the door to the centre of the earth — on clear evenings the cone catches the last pink light behind the hamlet. The Hellnar walk is under an hour each way, flat enough for families, and empty at both ends of the day. Golden hour favours the arch from the west side. Two and a quarter hours from Reykjavík, and the natural pairing with Kirkjufell across the peninsula makes Snæfellsnes a one-day, two-session drive.