2 Best Sights in Reykjanes Peninsula and the South Coast (with the Golden Circle), Iceland

“The Drowning Pool” is where, for a couple of hundred years, women were drowned—most of them sentenced to death for incest, having children out of wedlock, or other alleged sex-related crimes. Þórdís Halldórsdóttir was the first woman to be drowned in Drekkingarhylur in AD 1590; her crime was perjury, for swearing she was a virgin when indeed she was pregnant.

A path down into Almannagjá from the top of the gorge overlooking Þingvellir leads to the high rock wall of Lögberg (Law Rock). At the time of the Icelandic Commonwealth Period, from AD 930 until 1262, Lögberg was the hub of the annual Alþingi meeting. The Lögsögumaður (law speaker) recited a third of the existing laws, which he had memorized, to the assembled parliament each year. After that recitation, anyone could step forward at Lögberg and give a speech or relay news. When Icelanders took allegiance to the Norwegian king in 1262, the authority of Lögberg disappeared.