Seydisfjordur Old Town

Seydisfjordur sits at the head of a long narrow fjord in the east, under waterfalls that come off the plateau on both sides. Its centre is a set of timber houses in a Norwegian style, many shipped over in kit form around the turn of the twentieth century when Norwegian merchants worked the herring here. They are painted in strong colours, and the short street leading to the pale blue wooden church has been painted in rainbow stripes across the tarmac. The ferry from the Faroes and Denmark docks a few hundred metres away, which gives the town a rhythm of its own.

What you actually see

• The blue church - the pale timber church at the head of the painted street.
• The Norwegian timber houses - kit-built merchants' houses in strong colours around the centre.
• The rainbow street - the painted road surface that has become the town's postcard.
• The fjord walls - waterfalls dropping from the plateau on both sides of the water.

When to go

Summer, when the pass over Fjardarheidi is reliably open, the ferry runs weekly and the small galleries and workshops are trading. Winter closes the pass in storms and the road down is steep and icy. Ferry mornings push a wave of vehicles through the town, so the hours after it sails are the calm ones.

Honest expectations

It is small, and an hour covers the centre on foot, yet it is busy enough that the painted street usually has someone standing in the middle of it for a photograph. The mountain pass in is high and often fogbound. The east is a long detour from the faster half of the ring road, so it rarely fits a short trip.

Nearby

Egilsstadir and Lake Lagarfljot are over the pass, and the eastern fjords run south from there.