Egilsstad'ir, Fijotsdalscherad', Iceland - 06/20/17

Fijotsdalscherad, Coat of Arms

After a tour around an entire Icelandic municipality (Fjard'abyggd'), we got over our anxiety and became accustomed to the land's diversity. There are just too many natural formations for us to see, and to much memorable natural beauty. At this moment it all started sinking in, and suddenly it wasn't necessary to experience everything personally anymore.

Our trip continues in Egilsstadir in Fijotsdalscherad', probably the biggest town we visited in Iceland so far, with 2.306 inhabitants in 2016 and 2.706 in the metropolitan area. It is the largest of the Eastern Region.
Egilsstadir is a very young town even by Icelandic standards, where urbanization is fairly recent, being established in 1947 due to it's regional importance.

Today the town is the main service, transportation, and administration center of east Iceland, having an airport, college and a hospital. The town also benefited with the construction of the Alcoa smelter and the Hydropower plant.
The landscape is particularly characterized by woods, with Iceland's biggest forest, Hallormsstad'ur, waterfalls, lakes and rivers, varied flora and fauna.

Our plan was to get lost in the forest, to create an adventure, but the entire 740 hectares (1828 acres or 2.85 sq mi) were marked with hiking trails... Of the beautiful things we saw in the forest, Hengifoss waterfall stood out. 

After finding our way back from the forest and eating some nice fresh fish with sauce, we followed a tip we got in Reyd'arjford'tur about the Hydropower plant used to power the Fjardaál smelter, called 'Karahnjukastifla'

Only upon getting here did we realized that it isn't just an average Hydroplant, but in fact a huge project, with the largest dam of it's kind in Europe. The Dam and the Haslón reservoir are part of Iceland's most extensive construction project to date, and the view is otherworldly.

A brief but interesting visit overall, just on the way to our next (kinda far away) destination in Iceland.

We heard that it is a small village, but with plenty to see. The place is also often called Myvatin, after it's central lake.