One of the Westmen Islands off the southern coast of Iceland, Surtsey is a nature preserve and is closed to visitors. To see it, Nichole Coudayre, Travcoa's Iceland specialist, suggests a one-week itinerary that includes Reykjavik, the fjords and lakes of rural Iceland, and a final few days in the Westmens. The best strategy for viewing Surtsey, according to Coudayre, is to stay on the Westman island of Heimaey, the only island of the group with human inhabitants. Currently, archaeologists are engaged in a massive excavation effort on Heimaey, where a 1973 eruption buried a large portion of the town （some call it the "Pompeii of the North"）.