Lindarbakki

Grass grows over the walls and the roof. Only the front of Lindarbakki is left clear and painted red, so from the road the building reads as a green mound with a red face.

Turf houses of this kind are usually met as museum pieces on old farm sites. This one stands in a village street in Bakkagerði, among ordinary buildings, and it is still somebody's property. That changes the visit. There is no route through rooms and nothing staged: just a house built the way Icelandic houses were built for centuries, with a sign on the outside that explains it.

• A stop, not a visit. Looking, reading the sign and taking a photograph is all there is to do here.
• Look, do not enter. People live here. Keep to the road side and stay off the plot.
• Read the sign. A sign on the outside of the house explains what it is and why it matters.
• Fine with children. A large swing stands beside the house, and a church on the other side of the road.

Lindarbakki stands on the main road through Bakkagerði and is on your right as you come into the village. There is no walk in: the house is at the roadside, and its red front faces the road. Most people stop here on the way to or from the puffin colony.

Better: summer, when the grass on the walls and roof is green and the road past the house carries people heading for the puffin colony.

Avoid: winter, if the turf is the reason you came. Under snow the grass roof disappears and only the red front and the outline of the mound are left. The green roof is why most photographs of the house are taken in summer.