Keflavik is where the international airport is location, about 45 minutes from the capital of Reykjavik.

I had some time to kill before my flight left (a whole day and a half in fact) so I did what I always like to do to pass the time, sketch.

One of the more intriguing sites of Keflavik is a troll’s cave near the harbor. As mentioned in another post, about 50% of Icelanders strongly believe in hidden people such as trolls, elves, and dwarfs.

So I sketched Skessuhelir, Giganta’s Cave. This attraction is a little bit like an amusement park without the rides, games, or food stands. It’s an attraction that defies description. It’s like a roadside attraction without the road. It is more like a harborside attraction really.

Trolls in Iceland function a bit like the bogyman in American culture, “If you don’t eat your broccoli, the troll will come and get you!” or “If you don’t clean up your room the Bogyman is coming for you!” Here was a chance to visit a troll and live to tell the tale.

Inside the cave, everything is oversized, the chair, toothbrush, shoes, and bed. In the darker end of the cave stood what looked like a Christmas tree but instead of being covered in lights and decorations, the troll’s tree was covered in baby’s pacifiers! I liked this Icelandic dark humor.

There was plenty of public art along the jetty and I sketched a bird sculpture of course. The sculpture mirrored the gulls, Arctic terns, and fulmars flying along the jetty.