Kirkjufellsfoss

Where it sits. Grundarfjörður is a fishing town of roughly nine hundred people on the northern coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in western Iceland, built along the head of the fjord that gives it its name. Mountains close it in on three sides, with Kirkjufell standing offshore of the town to the west and the Eyrarfjall ridge behind. Route 54 runs through as the main street, connecting Stykkishólmur 40 kilometres east with Ólafsvík and the Snæfellsjökull glacier to the west. The harbour is the centre of the place in every sense: the pier, the fish plant, the boats and the small cluster of shops sit within a few hundred metres of one another, and the residential streets climb the slope behind them.

The story behind it. The site was designated one of Iceland's authorised trading places in 1786, when the Danish crown loosened its monopoly on Icelandic commerce, and a merchant settlement grew on the sheltered water. Through the nineteenth century French cod schooners worked these grounds in large numbers, and Grundarfjörður became one of their supply points, with a French presence that included a hospital and a chapel serving crews far from home; the French connection is still commemorated locally and is unusual on this coast. The modern town dates from the twentieth-century consolidation of fishing: a harbour capable of handling trawlers, a freezing plant, and a population that grew and then stabilised. Fish processing remains the economic backbone, with tourism now firmly in second place.

On screen. Grundarfjörður's screen fame belongs almost entirely to the mountain on its doorstep. Kirkjufell served Game of Thrones as the arrowhead mountain seen in Bran Stark's visions in the sixth season and used as a landmark by the ranging party during the wight hunt in the seventh, and the town supplied the practical base for that work — the road, the parking, the beds and the coffee that any location shoot needs. Snæfellsnes more broadly has a long film record: the peninsula's towns and coast have doubled for Greenland on screen, with Stykkishólmur standing in for Nuuk in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Visitors arriving with the series in mind should understand the geography: nothing was filmed inside the town, and the recognisable frames are all from the roadside and the waterfall a kilometre west.

What you actually see today. The town rewards an unhurried hour rather than a photo stop. Sögumiðstöðin, the Saga Centre on the main road, holds a local heritage exhibition, a small cinema showing regional films, a cafe and the tourist information desk. The harbour usually has trawlers alongside and gives the cleanest view of Kirkjufell above the masts. Melrakkaey, a low island in the fjord, is a protected bird reserve with puffins, fulmars and eiders; landing is prohibited, but boats pass it. In winter the fjord fills with herring, and the orca pods that follow them make Grundarfjörður one of the more reliable places in Iceland for whale watching between January and March, with operators sailing from the pier. The municipal swimming pool, as in every Icelandic town, is the social centre and costs very little.

Getting there and timing. The drive from Reykjavik is about 180 kilometres and two and a half hours by Borgarnes and Route 54, or slightly longer via the northern shore of Hvalfjörður. Buses run from Reykjavik several times a week. The town has fuel, a supermarket, a bank machine, guesthouses and two hotels, which makes it the practical overnight base for the northern half of Snæfellsnes; the alternative, Stykkishólmur, is larger and busier. Weather governs everything here. The peninsula catches North Atlantic systems head-on, Route 54 can close in winter storms, and the mountain passes inland close more often than the coast road. Aurora watching is good from October to March simply because the town is small, the light pollution is minimal and the northern horizon over the fjord is open.

A note on pressure. A town of nine hundred people now receives a substantial share of Iceland's tourist traffic because of one mountain. Parking on the verge of Route 54 near the waterfall causes real problems, the fee-paying car park exists to fund the paths and toilets that heavy footfall requires, and the roped-off riverbanks are recovering from erosion rather than being kept from view. Using the town's cafes and staying a night rather than passing through in twenty minutes is the difference between the place absorbing visitors and simply enduring them. The municipality has been open about wanting the second kind of visit rather than the first, and the Saga Centre desk is the practical place to ask what is actually running in a given week, since winter opening hours across the peninsula change with demand.