Bustarfell Museum

The farm itself is the exhibit. A cluster of turf buildings stands joined end to end under low grass roofs, with thick walls and a weathered timber door at the entrance. The rooms inside are furnished to show how one household and its tools changed across the 18th and 19th centuries, rather than as a single frozen year. Nothing here is a reconstruction, and nothing is polished up for visitors. Outside, it is still a working farmyard: sheep, goats, hens and dogs move around the buildings, and a turkey turns up. The setting is quiet, and the museum works well for children.

• Café next door: homemade cakes, with seating indoors and outside. The coffee itself is ordinary.
• Toilets are on site.
• Allow an hour or two for the buildings and the café together.
• With children: farm animals move around the buildings — sheep, goats, hens, dogs — and the museum is set up for families.
• Online: the museum keeps its page on Facebook.

Bustarfell Museum stands in Hofsárdalur, inland from Vopnafjörður in East Iceland. Reaching it means leaving the Ring Road and driving up the valley, so it is a deliberate detour rather than a stop made on the way. The turf buildings, the exhibition and the café stand together in one cluster.

Better: a dry day, and a stop long enough to take the buildings and the café at a walking pace.

Avoid: arriving shortly before closing.

The rooms are walked through in sequence, and the café next door is part of the visit, so a rushed half hour gets little out of either. Dry weather also adds the farmyard and the outdoor seating; in rain the visit stays indoors.