Eggin í Gleðivík (Eggs of Merry Bay)

About Eggin í Gleðivík (Eggs of Merry Bay)

Eggin í Gleðivík, the Eggs of Merry Bay in English, is an outdoor artwork of 34 granite eggs set in a row along the harbor road in Djúpivogur, a small fishing village on the coast of East Iceland. Each egg stands for one bird species that nests in the area. The Icelandic artist Sigurður Guðmundsson made the piece, and it was unveiled on August 14, 2009.

The eggs sit on concrete pillars that once carried a pipe from the landing to the old fish factory in Gleðivík, so the artwork reuses a piece of the town's working past. Most of the eggs are close to the same size. The exception is the egg of the red-throated diver, called lómur in Icelandic, which is noticeably larger because the bird is the symbol of Djúpivogur.

The Djúpivogur egg sculptures are about 750 meters from the village center, an easy walk along the waterfront or a minute's drive. Djúpivogur sits just off Route 1 in the southern Eastfjords, about an hour and a half from Höfn by car, which makes it a natural break on a Ring Road day between the glacier coast and the fjords further north.

There is no fee or opening time, so you can stop whenever you pass through. Fifteen to thirty minutes is enough to walk the full line and read the sign at the start. Summer is the best time to visit Eggin í Gleðivík if you also want to see the real birds, since many of the species represented nest here from May through August.