Eggin i Gledivik, Djupivogur

Djupivogur is a fishing village on the east coast with a working harbour, a couple of surviving eighteenth-century trading buildings and the pyramid of Bulandstindur standing behind it. Along the old harbour front runs a line of thirty-four polished granite eggs on low concrete plinths, each scaled up and each based on the egg of a bird that nests in the district, with one of them, the village's own bird, made larger than the rest. The work is by an Icelandic sculptor and was installed at the end of the 2000s. It reads as a local bird list turned into objects, and walking the row while the boats work behind you takes about twenty minutes.

History

The eggs are a work by the artist Sigurður Guðmundsson, installed in the summer of 2009 about 900 metres west of the village; the name means the Eggs of Merry Bay, and each of the 34 copies stands for a bird that nests in the area. The quay behind them is older: by the early 1800s Djúpivogur was a tiny port with a Danish trading base, and Langabúð, on the harbour, is one of the oldest commercial buildings in Iceland. Hans Jonatan, who had been enslaved in Copenhagen, escaped to Djúpivogur and became one of Iceland's first people of colour (Wikipedia, Djúpivogur).

What you'll find

• The row of eggs - thirty-four polished granite eggs on plinths along the quay.
• The bird list - each egg matched to a species that nests in the surrounding district.
• The old harbour - working boats and eighteenth-century trading buildings behind the row.
• Bulandstindur - the pyramid-shaped mountain closing the view inland.

When to go

May to September, when the village is awake, the boats are working and the light is long; the row stands outdoors and can be walked at any hour. Winter leaves the eggs under snow and the village very quiet. It falls naturally on the eastern stretch of the ring road between Hofn and the fjords, so no detour is needed.

What to expect

It is a twenty-minute walk and nothing more, and anyone expecting an art site finds a line of stones on a working quay. The plinths are low and the setting is industrial, with containers and fishing gear close by. Weather off the sea makes the walk unpleasant often enough. Snow covers them for months at a time in winter.

Nearby

The eastern fjords run north toward Stodvarfjordur, and the ring road runs south toward Hofn.