Páskahellir (Easter Cave)

Páskahellir lies at the end of the coast road out of Neskaupstaður in East Iceland, at the seaward edge of the reserve that in 1972 became the first of its kind in the country. Waves cut the cave into lava that cooled some twelve million years ago; its walls hold columnar basalt beside round hollows where tree trunks were once buried by a flow — a fossil forest in stone. The name means 'Easter Cave', from a belief that the Easter sunrise dances at the entrance. The cave is shallow, and the short cliff walk out is much of the reward.