West Iceland

West Iceland covers two landscapes on one loop from Reykjavík. The Snæfellsnes peninsula is anchored by Snæfellsjökull, a 1,446 m glacier-capped volcano that Jules Verne chose as the entrance to the underworld in Journey to the Center of the Earth; its national park runs from black-pebble beaches to the 8,000-year-old Vatnshellir lava tube. Kirkjufell, Iceland's most-photographed mountain, rises near Grundarfjörður, while Stykkishólmur's harbor sends the Baldur ferry across Breiðafjörður to the Westfjords. Inland, Borgarfjörður holds Deildartunguhver, Europe's most powerful hot spring at 180 liters a second, the lava-fed cascades of Hraunfossar, and Glymur, one of the country's tallest waterfalls, reached on foot across a river.