Seyðisfjörður and the east fjords of Iceland

Most of Iceland's visitors arrive at Keflavík, in the south-west, and see the country from Reykjavík outwards. Seyðisfjörður is the other front door. It sits at the head of a narrow fjord on the east coast, and this is where the Norröna, Smyril Line's ferry, comes in from Hirtshals in Denmark by way of Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands, carrying cars, camper vans and people who have chosen to reach Iceland the slow way. For a cruise passenger the arrival is much the same: a long run in between steep mountainsides, waterfalls coming down them, and a small town of coloured houses waiting at the end.

The east fjords are the quiet side of Iceland. The coast here is broken into a run of fjords, many with a village or small town at its head, a long way by road from Reykjavík and the sights of the south-west.

A town the Norwegians built

Seyðisfjörður owes its look to the herring. In the nineteenth century Norwegian fishermen and merchants came to the east fjords for the great shoals, and Seyðisfjörður, with its deep, sheltered harbour, became one of their bases. Norwegian firms dominated the herring trade here in the late 1800s, and they built in the way they knew. Many of the timber houses that still line the streets were shipped over from Norway as kits, around the turn of the twentieth century, and put together on the shore.

That is why the town looks the way it does, unlike many Icelandic settlements: wooden houses with steep roofs and painted walls, red, yellow, green and white, set along the water and up the lower slopes. When the herring went, the money went too, but the houses stayed. In recent decades the town has also become known for its artists, and there are galleries and studios among the old houses.

On the mountainside above the town, a walk of a quarter of an hour or so up a gravel path, stands Tvísöngur, a sound sculpture, and the view back down over the roofs to the fjord.

The road over the mountain

There is only one road out of Seyðisfjörður, and it goes up. It climbs over the Fjarðarheiði pass, at around six hundred metres, and drops down the other side to Egilsstaðir, the main town of the east, about 27 kilometres away. In winter the pass can be hard going, and rescue teams have often been called out to it. It is also the only road link to the country's ferry port to Europe.

The other thing they are used to, unhappily, is the mountain behind them. In December 2020, after days of rain the Icelandic Met Office called unprecedented, a series of landslides came down on the town between the 15th and the 18th. More than ten buildings were destroyed or damaged, and the largest slide, on the 18th, has been described by the Met Office as the largest landslide to have damaged an urban area in Iceland. The town had been evacuated in time, and no one was hurt. The town has lived with the risk ever since, and has been evacuated again during heavy rain.

Cruises that call there

Ambassador Cruise Line's three Iceland cruises here all go round the coast and include Seyðisfjörður, with the Faroe Islands on the way.

The eleven-night Iceland's Land of Ice & Fire sails from Dundee in August, with Klaksvík and Runavík in the Faroes, then Reykjavík, Ísafjörður, Akureyri and Seyðisfjörður among its places.

The eleven-night Natural Wonders & Wildlife of Iceland sails from Belfast in June, with Runavík, Seyðisfjörður, Akureyri, Ísafjörður, Reykjavík and Liverpool among its places.

The twelve-night Glaciers, Geysers & Waterfalls of Iceland sails from London Tilbury, also in June, with Runavík, Reykjavík, Ísafjörður, Akureyri and Seyðisfjörður among its places.

A day in Seyðisfjörður does not need much planning. Walk the waterfront and the old streets, climb up to the sound sculpture if the weather allows, and leave time to stand at the end of the quay and look back down the fjord you came in by. It is the way the Norwegians first saw it, and the way the ferry still does.