Petra’s Stone Collection
Petra's Stone Collection in Stöðvarfjörður is one of the most distinctive attractions on Iceland's Ring Road: a private home and garden filled with hundreds of thousands of rocks, minerals, and geological specimens collected from the East Iceland countryside by Ljósbjörg Petra María Sveinsdóttir over more than six decades. Petra began collecting stones as a child in 1946 and opened her home to visitors in 1974. She passed away in 2012, and the collection is now maintained by her family.
One Woman's Lifetime of Stone Collecting, Open to Visitors Since 1974
Petra grew up in the remote Eastfjords at a time when the region had almost no roads and the countryside was traversed entirely on foot. She began collecting rocks as a child, drawn first to stones she could use as drawing tools and then to those with unusual colours or formations. In 1946 she and her husband bought the house at Fjarðarbraut 21 in Stöðvarfjörður, and her collection expanded steadily as she explored the mountains and coastal areas of the Eastfjords on foot over the following decades. By 1974 the collection had grown large enough and curious enough that she opened her home to visitors. What had been a private obsession became one of East Iceland's most visited attractions, with tens of thousands of people stopping each year. The family maintains the site today, and the collection is widely regarded as the largest privately owned rock and mineral collection in the world.
The collection is displayed throughout the house and spread across the garden, which is planted with flowers and laid out to complement the stones. Inside, the rooms are dense with specimens: zeolites, calcite, obsidian, chalcedony, quartz, and many minerals specific to the basaltic geology of East Iceland. The centrepiece is a large chalcedony and quartz specimen near the garden entrance. Petra was a collector in the broadest sense, and the house also contains stuffed birds, shells, bird eggs, handkerchiefs, and accumulated personal items that give the place the feeling of a lived-in home rather than a formal museum. A small café on site serves coffee, soup, and pastries, including the Icelandic meat soup that gets consistently strong reviews from visitors.
The collection is open from 1 May to 15 October, daily from 9am to 5pm. Entry is 2,200 ISK for adults, with a group discount for 10 or more. Stöðvarfjörður is the only Eastfjords village that the Ring Road passes directly through, making it impossible to miss for anyone driving the Ring Road. The village is roughly midway along the Eastfjords coast, about 60 kilometres south of Egilsstaðir. The address is Fjarðarbraut 21. Check steinapetra.is for current information.
