Iceland
On the remote northwestern coast of Iceland, where the Westfjords stretch bony fingers into the Denmark Strait, the village of Hólmavík clings to a hillside above a fjord with a stubbornness that mirrors the resilience of its inhabitants. With a population of barely four hundred, this tiny settlement has found an unlikely claim to fame: the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, which documents the region's extraordinary history of magical practices, witch trials, and the belief systems that sustained communities in one of Europe's most inhospitable landscapes.
Hólmavík's character is shaped by its extreme setting. The Westfjords receive some of Iceland's harshest weather — winter storms drive horizontal rain and snow across treeless mountains, and summer daylight stretches to near-perpetual brightness. The village sits at the head of Steingrímsfjörður, a long, narrow fjord that channels Arctic winds with particular ferocity. Yet the same remoteness that makes life challenging has preserved a landscape of raw, uncompromised beauty — moss-covered lava fields, cascading waterfalls, and coastlines where Arctic foxes hunt among the driftwood.
The Sorcery Museum is unlike any cultural institution in Iceland. Its exhibits explore the genuine historical phenomenon of the Westfjords witch hunts — a period in the seventeenth century when twenty-one people were burned at the stake for alleged sorcery, the vast majority of them men (an inversion of the gender pattern found in most European witch trials). The museum displays reconstructions of magical staves — runic symbols carved into wood or skin and believed to confer powers ranging from invisibility to the ability to raise the dead. The most notorious exhibit is the necropants — nábrók — a pair of trousers made from the skin of a dead man, believed to generate an endless supply of coins.
Beyond the museum, the Westfjords offer some of Iceland's most spectacular and least-visited natural attractions. The Drangsnes hot pots — three geothermally heated pools set directly on the shoreline — provide free bathing with views across the fjord to distant mountains. The bird cliffs of Látrabjarg, the westernmost point of Europe, host millions of nesting seabirds including remarkably tame puffins that allow approach to within arm's length.
Hólmavík is accessible by road from Reykjavík (approximately four hours via Route 68) or by the Westfjords ferry from Stykkishólmur. The village has a small harbour that can accommodate expedition vessels and sailing yachts. The best time to visit is June through August, when roads are clear, days are long, and the weather is at its most clement — though "clement" in the Westfjords remains a relative term. Winter visits offer northern lights and absolute solitude.