29 May 2017 - Iceland Day 4: Vik Village and dinner at Suður-Vík Restaurant

Vík (Vík í Mýrdal in full) is the southernmost village in Iceland, located on the main ring road around the island.  It is a small village with a population of about 400.  We decided to explore the village before going for our dinner.  Regardless of where we were standing in the village, we could see a church situated on top of a hill.

We drove up to the Church (Víkurkirkja) and had a superb bird's eye view of the entire Vik Village.

We could see a spectacular set of rock columns called Reynisdrangar rise majestically out of the Atlantic Ocean.

Vík lies directly south of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, which itself is on top of the Katla volcano. Katla has not erupted since 1918, and this longer than typical dormant period has led to speculation that an eruption may occur soon. An eruption of Katla could melt enough ice to trigger an enormous flash flood, potentially large enough to obliterate the entire town. The town's church, located high on a hill, is believed to be the only building that would survive such a flood. Thus, the people of Vík practice periodic drills and are trained to rush to the church at the first sign of an eruption.

We then drove down the hill to visit other interesting parts of Vik.

We came to a statue, created by sculptor Steinunn Þórarinsdóttir, which stands on Víkurfjara beach called "För" ("Journey"). Some refer it as the Statue of Friendship.  It is part of a set of two statues, one standing in Vík and the other one in Hull, England. The two statues are identical and are looking at each other across the sea. They represent the thousand-year-old trade relationships between the two cities, as well as an homage to all the Icelandic and English sailors who were lost at sea over the centuries.

Based on reviews on Tripadvisor, we decided to have our dinner at Suður-Vík Restaurant up the hill.

The restaurant is located on level 2 of the building.

There is a wide selection of dishes both local and non-local.  Below were what we had ordered.

Due to the "high living standard" in Iceland, this was our first meal in a restaurant..  :-)

After dinner, we drove back to our hotel room which marks the end of our 4th day in Iceland.

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