Category: Islands of the North Atlantic

Simple day of sightseeing in the “big smoke”, such as it is here. The Cathedral (see feature photo) is much nicer, in my opinion, than the one by the same architect in Akurery. The top was visible at the top of the street our apartment was on, so we just walked straight up to it.…

Last Icelandic rural or wilderness visit for us on this trip. Þingvellir (that first part is pronounced “Thing”, not sure about the last part) is east and slightly north of Reykjavik. It’s a big national park, taking in a large lake and all of the space between the dropped floor of a rift valley. Arguably…

Today we travelled up to the north-east of here, to Gaysir, the big geyser, from which they all get their name. Close to there is Gulfoss Falls. These are the last of the big-name falls on our Iceland tour, which is just as well, because everything after will seem feeble and insignificant. These are great,…

We had such a late start, yesterday, that we decided to have our lunch at the apartment before heading out. Of the four planned stops, the first was the Raaufarholshellir Lava Tunnels. It’s a commercial enterprise, so costs to go in. We’ve seen lava tunnels, so decided to give these a miss. Second spot was…

Too late for much here. Hopefully I’ll get back to flesh this out tomorrow. Glacier (Solheimajokull) was the dustiest that I’ve seen: the bergs in the melt pool were mostly completely black. Also possible to walk quite close to the face, which is unusual. According to the histories, the face was once right at the…

Dyrhólaey is another free-standing block of tuff, connected to the mainland by a causway. It doesn’t have the Unesco status of yesterday’s, nor the Viking history, but it does have a road up to the top, and up there is a lighthouse and several magnificent views. Also close proximity to what seemed to be a…

Despite dire predictions from the Iclandic meteorology service for today, it’s turned out to be another beautiful day. Wind eased off, no rain, and even a bit of blue sky in the middle of the day. We headed back towards Vatnajokul this morning, through the strange moss-covered larva fields, in order to get to Fjaðrárgljúfur,…

We checked out of our hotel near Hofn in the rain this morning (8th). Grim. Oh well. Now in character for how we imagined Iceland, instead of all the lovely weather we’ve been having. First stop was the Jokulsarlon Glacier lagoon, to see the icebergs. This was a bit meh, I’m afraid. Rain, cold, lots…

Today (7th) was a beautiful clear morning in Seydisfjordur, and after packing up and checking out, we discovered that the village itself was as shiny and picturesque as you could hope for. Also, it had an open coffee shop, albeit one in which the hipster barista explained that the pastries had finished at ten, and…