Egilsstadir

The widest wood in the country holds sixty tree kinds planted as a trial. The trees stay low, so it reads less like a forest and more like a short garden.

Water falls 128 metres down a cliff banded with red clay and black basalt in turn. Each band marks a separate eruption in the past.

Glacier water keeps the lake cloudy and the bottom never shows. A story of a serpent in its depths has come down over a thousand years.

A mountain pass leads to this port village where the street to the church is painted in rainbow bands. When avalanches close the pass in winter the place is cut off for days.

A dam lowered the flow and uncovered a canyon lined with hexagonal basalt columns. The water runs jade and the columns pack both walls tight.

Pools were built into wooden decks floating on the lake, so the view comes from inside the water. This patch never freezes in winter, which is how it was known long ago.

Every reindeer in the country lives on the eastern highland and they come down in winter. Seeing a herd from the roadside is not unusual in that season.

The minerals and stones one woman gathered over a lifetime fill her house and yard. They are stacked by colour and shape without any labels, which changes how they are read.

Puffins nest on a rock beside the quay and are seen from a few metres away. A wooden stair was built so that nobody treads over the burrows.

An unpaved mountain road crosses the highland and runs south. Some stretches ford a river directly, so only certain vehicles are allowed on it.

A large manor designed by a German architect for the writer Gunnar Gunnarsson in 1939, now a literary centre. In the field below lie the excavated stone footings of a monastery that closed in the 16th century. It pairs naturally with a trip to Hengifoss.

A waterfall halfway up the Hengifoss trail, framed on both sides by tall basalt columns. Getting there takes roughly 20 minutes of uphill walking, so people who will not make it to Hengifoss still get this far. The wet columns shine black.

A 193-metre dam blocking a glacial river deep in the highlands, the largest concrete-faced rock-fill dam in Europe. Once the snow clears in summer, the road built for the project reaches the dam. Below it the Hafrahvammagljufur canyon drops dizzyingly deep.

A waterfall about 30 minutes uphill from the start of the mountain road over to Seydisfjordur. Behind the falling water is a small cave, where legend says a troll woman lived. From up there the town and lake spread out below.

A sound sculpture of five joined concrete domes on the slope above Seydisfjordur. Each dome resonates at a different note, so a voice inside layers like the old Icelandic two-part singing. Reaching it means a 15-minute uphill walk from the village.

The regional museum in central Egilsstadir, covering reindeer hunting and life in the highlands. A whole communal sleeping room from a turf farm has been moved inside, and visitors walk right into it. A sensible stop when the weather keeps you off the trails.