Bíldudalur
Bíldudalur is a small fishing village of around 300 people on the shores of Arnarfjörður, the second-largest fjord in the Westfjords. Its sheltered southerly position has earned it a local reputation as the good-weather capital of the Westfjords. The village is best known for the Icelandic Sea Monster Museum, which documents centuries of recorded sea creature sightings in Arnarfjörður, one of the fjords with the highest number of historical monster reports in Iceland. A seasonal domestic flight connects Bíldudalur to Reykjavik in about 45 minutes.
A Quiet Westfjords Fjord Village Where Sea Monster Sightings Have Been Recorded for Centuries
The Icelandic Sea Monster Museum, Skrímslasafnið, is the central attraction in Bíldudalur. Arnarfjörður has more recorded sea monster accounts than any other fjord in Iceland, and the museum presents these accounts through multimedia displays covering multiple centuries of sightings from the local area. The collections range from medieval written sources to 20th-century eyewitness reports, and the museum treats the folklore with the same seriousness that the Lagarfljót worm receives in East Iceland. The village sits at the innermost point of Arnarfjörður, surrounded by steep mountains that rise directly from the water and create the calm, sheltered conditions that give Bíldudalur its unusually mild microclimate relative to the rest of the Westfjords.
Bíldudalur was once a significant commercial hub after the Danish Trade Monopoly ended in 1786, when the merchant Ólafur Thorlacius built a trading operation here that became one of the most notable in Iceland. Today the economy rests on shrimp farming, Hafkalk sea mineral processing, and tourism. A second unusual attraction is Melodies of the Past, a private collection of Icelandic rock music memorabilia from the 1960s and 1970s opened by Jón Kr. Ólafsson, former vocalist of the Icelandic band Facon, in the basement of his home. The village also has a 9-hole golf course and is a well-regarded spot for deep-sea angling in Arnarfjörður.
Bíldudalur is about 375 kilometres from Reykjavik by road, roughly a 5 to 6 hour drive via Route 60, or considerably shorter with the Baldur ferry from Stykkishólmur. Seasonal domestic flights connect the village to Reykjavik in about 45 minutes from Bíldudalur Airport, making it one of the more accessible villages in the remote southern Westfjords. Dynjandi waterfall, known as the Jewel of the Westfjords, is about 45 minutes north by road. Patreksfjörður, the largest town in the southern Westfjords and the base for visiting Látrabjarg cliffs, is about 30 kilometres south.
