Budakirkja Church

A small wooden church coated pitch-black, Búðakirkja stands by itself on the Búðahraun lava field, on the southern edge of the Snæfellsnes peninsula between the ocean and snow-capped mountains. The parish dates to 1703; the original church was pulled down in the early 19th century, then rebuilt in 1848 by Steinunn Sveinsdóttir, a local widow who fought the church authorities to bring it back. What stands today was restored in 1987. Its pull is almost entirely the setting — black timber alone against a vast, bare landscape.