Fáskrúðsfjörður

Fáskrúðsfjörður

Fáskrúðsfjörður

Town in Northeast Constituency, Iceland


Fáskrúðsfjörður (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈfauːˌskruðsˌfjœrðʏr̥] ; previously named also Búðir[1] [ˈpuːðɪr̥]) is a village (þorp) in eastern Iceland.

Quick Facts Country, Constituency ...

It has a population of 662 (as of 2011) and constitutes one of the villages composing the municipality of Fjarðabyggð.

Geography

Fáskrúðsfjörður, located on the same-named fjord, lies between Reyðarfjörður and Stöðvarfjörður. It is one of the easternmost settlements of Iceland.

The other neighbouring villages which compose the municipality of Fjarðabyggð are: Eskifjörður (1,043 inh.), Mjóifjörður (35 inh.), Neskaupstaður (1,437 inh.),[2] Reyðarfjörður (1,102 inh.) and Stöðvarfjörður (203 inh.).[3]

History and culture

Fáskrúðsfjörður was home to a hospital founded to serve French fishermen working here until 1935. The former hospital building dating from 1903 has now been restored as a hotel.[4] Even nowadays there are bilingual signs in town indicating the street names in Icelandic and in French. The French cemetery with 49 graves of fishermen from France and Belgium is another tourist attraction. The cross was erected in 2009.[5]

The village is now a centre for visitors viewing the Northern Lights.

Attractions

There are tour operators offering trips by boat to the small uninhabited island Skrúður which is famous for its large variety of sea birds, especially for its puffins.[6] In the east of Fáskrúðsfjörður, on the farm Kolfreyjustaður a church (Kolfreyjustaðakirkja) was built of driftwood in 1878, which is famous for its wall paintings dating from 1957 and for its retable painted by the Danish artist Niels Anker Lund (1840–1922).[7] Vattarnesviti is an orange lighthouse on the peninsula of Vattarnes in the northeast of Fáskrúðsfjörður built in 1957.[8]

Twin towns

Photogallery


References

  1. Parnell, Fran; O'Carroll, Etain (2007). Iceland. 6th ed. Footscray (Vic.); Oakland (CA): Lonely Planet. pp. 269–270. ISBN 978-1-74104-537-6
  2. Most likely located in the Norðfjörður
  3. "A French Hospital turned into a Hotel in Fáskrúðsfjörður". Iceland magazine. Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  4. Barbara and Jörg-Thomas Titz: Island, p. 442. Bielefeld 2005

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Fáskrúðsfjörður, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.