Seyðisfjörður's rainbow street and the Tvísöngur walk

This is a short, free walk in Seyðisfjörður: along Norðurgata, the street painted in rainbow colours that leads to the Blue Church, then 15–20 minutes up a gravel track to Tvísöngur, five concrete domes on the hillside that each ring at a different tone. It suits anyone with a spare 90 minutes in the Eastfjords, ferry passengers arriving or leaving on the Norröna, and children who like making noise in an echo. Its limit is the road in: from Egilsstaðir, road 93 climbs over the Fjarðarheiði pass.

The figures, read today: Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, which realised the work, says Tvísöngur was made by the German artist Lukas Kühne and opened on 5 September 2012. It is five interconnected concrete domes between 2 and 4 metres high, covering about 30 square metres; each dome resonates at a tone from the Icelandic tradition of five-tone harmony. It is open to everyone and usually accessible all year as long as snow and weather allow; the walk is 15–20 minutes up a gravel road starting across from the Brimberg fish factory. Visit Austurland, the regional tourist office, says the rainbow street is Norðurgata, painted by residents one night in summer 2016 and repainted each summer, with the church usually called Bláa kirkjan at its end.

#The arithmetic

Seyðisfjörður is already on day 4 of the ten-day Ring Road, an Egilsstaðir loop, and on day 6 of the Iceland and Faroe Islands ferry journey, when the Norröna lands there. On those days the walk costs about 90 minutes: 15 on the street, 20 up, 20 at the domes, 20 down, a 15-minute margin. From an Egilsstaðir bed as a separate trip, the town is 28 km and 25 minutes each way over Fjarðarheiði by OSRM on OpenStreetMap; with the same 90 minutes and a 15-minute buffer, about 155 minutes. The seven-day Ring Road sleeps in Egilsstaðir on day 3, so the 155-minute figure is the one to add there.

#What goes wrong

Fjarðarheiði: road 93 crosses a mountain pass, and in winter whether it is passable is a same-day question. The Road and Coastal Administration's conditions service, umferdin.is (road.is redirects there), and vedur.is are the two pages safetravel.is points drivers to, and its advice is to wait somewhere safe rather than drive on into weather. The road status could not be fixed as a figure here, because it changes by the hour. On foot, the gravel track to the domes can be snow-covered, and Skaftfell's own wording is "as long as the snow and weather conditions permit".

#Alternatives on the same road

Back on the Egilsstaðir side, the Hengifoss walk is the longer climb in Fljótsdalur. North-east of Egilsstaðir, the puffins at Borgarfjörður eystri are a summer half-day. Inland, Stuðlagil is the basalt canyon on the Ring Road towards Mývatn.