Yes, it really looks like that. No, the cows in the background don't seem to notice the view.
Tucked into a valley not far from the northern Icelandic city of Akureyri is a little farm where you can rent a room (or two, or three) in a guesthouse. When you do, you will be greeted by a calmly competent woman named Elisabeth, but mostly you will be immediately impressed with the looks of the place: spotless and modern, with just the right mix of clean, spare lines and warm Nordic touches. If you were smart enough to take Elisabeth up on her offer to include dinner with your stay, you will also be greeted with delicious smells of dinner cooking. Now you are in for a treat. Have a look around the farm while you wait for dinner.
After dinner, which will be excellent, you will start to notice other little touches: the hand-knitted and felted items on display in the cabinet, the art on the walls, the pillows made from re-purposed Nordic sweaters, and it will occur to you that you might be in the presence of greatness. A few words with Elisabeth will confirm that suspicion: she makes it all. She's probably not going to like reading this, as she's very modest, but here's a list of the talents she posesses--at least, the ones I asked her about over the next few days of our stay: she spins, dyes, knits, and felts (and oh, by the way, all with wool from sheep that she actually raises!) She sews, bakes (more about that down below), cooks like a trained chef, plates and presents like a food stylist, and also--wait for it--trained as a nurse and works as a midwife. I was tempted to have another baby just so I could see how she handles that. Ok, not really. But still. Oh, and in addition to farming and running a guesthouse, she's also the mother to four grown sons. This is a woman who can get. sh*t. done.
Breakfast is included with your stay, and the spread was vast. We really had to pace ourselves. The little pots of preserves were actually my first real inkling of the magnitude of Elisabeth's talents. She was describing the contents of the hand-labeled jars: the carrot/rhubarb preserves, the several berry jams from wild berries she foraged nearby, the ersatz honey she distills from, of all things, dandelion flowers. I had to try them all. They were all terrific, and as Adam noted, the "honey" could put the bees out of business. We were lucky enough to celebrate Middle's 12th birthday there, and she made that extra special. We're still talking about the caramel brownie cake she made for dessert, after a dinner of lamb that couldn't have been more local. Or more tasty.
Lest you think I did nothing but stalk the proprietress, we did spend our days at Baegisa doing other things: touring the area by car, and taking walks in the valley behind the farm, passing the little church that is literally in Baegisa's backyard as we made our way up over the creek and towards a nearby waterfall. This being Iceland, you are never far from a little church or a waterfall, but the ones near Baegisa were particularly charming. Or maybe that's just because we were all in a good mood after being so well fed. Here's some of what we saw on our journeys:
This place is really special. Seriously. Every single one of us listed our stay at Baegisa as a high point of our Icelandic adventure--no small feat given our disparate tastes. I'd go back in a heartbeat to explore Akureyri, shear sheep, sous-chef for Elisabeth, hike the other canyons...we just need to explore the rest of the world first.
Oh, and if you are a European reality-TV producer or cookbook publisher looking for the next Martha Stewart, you know where to go. You're welcome.