Grindavik

Dissolved silica turns the water a milky blue and it sits near 38 degrees. Nobody enters without a reservation and the number let in is capped for each time slot. It shuts when a nearby eruption breaks out, so check that day's status.

A small bridge was laid over the rift between the North American and Eurasian plates. The plates pull apart 2 centimetres a year, so the gap widens by that much.

Steam blasts from the earth and the soil around it has turned red. Wooden decks are laid across, though a shift in the steam can blank out the view.

The oldest lighthouse site in the country carries a building put up in 1908. On the rock stack below the cliff, gulls and cormorants pack in tightly.

Thick moss covers the hardened lava and the surface sinks underfoot. Regrowth takes decades, so nobody steps off the marked line.

An earthquake cracked the bed and the water drained away before filling again. Black sand lines the shore and steam rises at one end of it.

Sulphur and iron leave the soil banded in yellow, orange and grey. Pools boil audibly and steam comes up through the boardwalk.

Tools and photographs from the years of curing cod for export are gathered here. Since the 2023 evacuation the building serves as a meeting place for residents, open only on Wednesday mornings, so check ahead whether the exhibition can be seen.

A cliff 40 metres high runs 5 kilometres with tens of thousands of seabird pairs nesting on it. No rail guards the top, so viewing is done back from the edge.

The lava hardened not long ago and the ground below the surface stays hot. Steam leaks from the cracks and how close anyone may go is set again each day.

Inside a glass hall on the Reykjanesbaer shore, the Viking ship replica Islendingur seems to float in mid-air. In 2000 this very ship sailed across the Atlantic all the way to New York. A staircase takes you aboard for a close look at oars and sail.

At the peninsula's northwestern tip an old lighthouse from 1897 stands near the 28.6-metre tower that replaced it in 1944. The old one is Iceland's second-oldest concrete structure. Seabirds gather in numbers, drawing birders in spring and autumn.

A seaside church built in 1887 from stone quarried nearby. The hymn writer Hallgrimur Petursson served as the parish priest here in the 17th century. The gravestone he carved himself for his young daughter is kept inside.

A 379-metre cone standing alone amid the lava plain. From the trailhead an hour or so of lava crossing leads to the last slope, climbed on loose gravel. Its shape shows even from the capital, and sailors once steered by it.

A round crater lake beside the road through the Krysuvik geothermal area, coloured an intense green. The colour is put down to dissolved minerals and algae on the bed. People pull over on the way to Seltun and walk the rim.

A black sand beach near the Bridge Between Continents, reached through the dunes. Steady waves roll in, bringing surfers in wetsuits. The wind whips the sand about, so keep your camera covered.