Growth Chart for My Little Ones

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

27 May 2017 - Iceland Day 2: Troll Park at Fossatún

Through my research on Iceland prior to this trip, I read about a Troll Park at Fossatún that is not far away from Reykholt.  Since the rain has stopped at that time, we decided to go and have a look.
I actually drove past it initially without knowing because the sign had actually fallen off (see below).  Fortunately we saw a "Troll Head" sticking out not too far away from the main road.
There are various types of accommodation (country hotel, guesthouse and camping pods) and restaurant in Fossatún.
Behind all these accommodation is a fairy-tale world of trolls created by the owners and farm operators of Fossatún.
The entire troll park actually covers a very huge piece of land.  You can read more about this place at the following website: Guide to Iceland and I have extracted some of its content below.
Some of the trolls in the Trolls' Park are quite scary looking. One of them is Grýla, who is the mother of the Icelandic Yule Lads. She is not the nicest of trolls, maybe the worst - and she eats naughty children and cooks them in her cauldron.  Both Jerlene and Javier refused to climb into the cauldron so I had to "sacrifice" myself.  :-)
The belief in trolls in Iceland is probably as old as the settlement itself, when the Vikings settled Iceland in ca 874.  As such, there are many places that are named after troll.  The waterfall behind Jerlene and Javier in the photo below is called Tröllafossar or Trolls' Falls.
Throughout the park, we came upon many troll's games as shown in the following pictures.
There is also a miniature house for children but within it are huge animal bones instead of toys.
We spent about 45mins walking around the park before it started to drizzle again.  As it was already 7:30pm, we drove back to Reykjavik and called it a day.

This place is definitely a hidden gem of Iceland and I would recommend all potential travelers to Iceland to visit it, especially those with kids.





Back to Itin        Next

No comments: