Kirkjugólf

About Kirkjugólf

Kirkjugólf looks like the floor of a lost church, laid in neat stone tiles in the middle of a meadow. The name means church floor, yet no church ever stood here. Kirkjugólf is a natural pavement of basalt columns on the eastern edge of Kirkjubæjarklaustur in South Iceland.

So what type of rock is Kirkjugólf made of? It's basalt. When a lava flow cooled, it contracted and cracked into columns, most of them five- or six-sided, and here only their flat tops reach the surface. Glaciers and waves later wore them smooth, which is why this patch of about 80 square meters looks so much like hand-laid tiling.

For a long time people assumed the floor was man-made, and many believed the medieval convent of Kirkjubær once stood on it. Around 1940 the ground beside the stones was dug out 3 to 4 m deep, and the columns kept going until the diggers reached groundwater, which settled the question. The convent turned out to have stood a little to the southwest. Kirkjugólf has been a protected natural monument since 1987.

The site lies by Route 203 (Geirlandsvegur), which branches off the Ring Road at Kirkjubæjarklaustur. A small parking lot on Route 203 serves it, and a short path, rebuilt in 2021, leads across the field to the stones. You can also walk over from the village or the campsite, and Vík is about an hour's drive west.

Fifteen minutes is enough for most people, and you can visit year-round. Overnight stays are banned at the parking lot, so use one of the village campsites instead. Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon is about 12 minutes away by car, which makes the two an easy pairing.