Olafsfjordur Beach

Black sand, picnic tables and, most days, nobody sitting at them. The beach lies on the shore below Ólafsfjörður, with the fjord in front and mountains on both sides. The sand is dark volcanic grit, and it gets into everything: crocs or sandals beat trainers here. What the beach offers is a walk along the water and somewhere to sit and eat outside. That is all it offers. People stop, walk the shoreline, look across the fjord and drive on, and the quiet is the reason to bother.

• No facilities — no toilets, no drinking water and no information board at the beach.
• Rough access road — the road in is messy and runs past what looks like a works site. Take it slowly in a low car.
• Footwear — the sand is fine and black and gets everywhere. Crocs or sandals are the better choice.
• Little to do — the beach is a walk and a picnic stop. In rain there is no reason to stop at all.

You get here by car. Two free car parks sit roughly 530 and 570 metres from the beach, one of them asphalt, and the rest is on foot. The access road is rough and passes what looks like a road works site. Ólafsfjörður itself is reached through tunnels: the one-lane Múli tunnel (Múlagöng) from Dalvík, or the Héðinsfjörður Tunnels from Siglufjörður, open since 2010 and usable all year.

Better: a dry, clear day, when the fjord and the mountains opposite are in view and the picnic tables are worth using.

Avoid: rain and wind. The stop earns its detour on the view and on somewhere to sit outside, and both fail in bad weather. There is nothing else here to fall back on.