Not Just a Granny

We explored Reykjavik from top to bottom, we ate huge breakfasts at the hotel (much like we did in New York in 2003), enough to carry us through to supper time (Iceland, as you can imagine is somewhat expensive),

Icelandic money – I have no idea what the value of that was in £’s

we drank gallons of hot chocolate and saw some of the most amazing things ever. There was a lot more of the city to explore, but due to the very slippery sidewalks and the freezing cold, our explorations were somewhat curtailed.

fireman’s waterpump in Reykjavik

We travelled all over the island…although it seemed like it was, it really was only a tiny little corner of the island!

who watched who I wonder!!!?

We also went on a whale-watching expedition….frankly I think the brochures and tourist offices lie….the whales are much too sensible to be hanging about in the freezing waters off Iceland and had shucked off to the Bahamas for the winter…..we spent nearly the whole day on a boat,

clad in a bright orange michelin man outfit that was unbelieveably difficult to get into and virtually impossible to get out of….talk of a corset…OMG!!!

Michelin woman!!! 🙂 Looks like a bear on her head 😉

you could barely breathe, but on the plus side, if you fell into the ocean, you would be warm and visible. For a while anyway. It was fabulous. I love being out at sea, the boat heaving and smashing into the waves, the wake a boiling mass of white fury streaming behind.

seagulls following in our wake….

Noisy squarking sea-gulls trailed the boat probably hoping for a tid-bit or two…we scanned the ocean in vain….every now an then a shout of excitement and everyone would rush to this end or that of the boat….alas 😦 “no whales today, they’ve up and gone away”.

the only whale we saw….

But, as a succour, we were treated to awesome vistas of ocean and mountains and vast plains covered in snow; here there and everywhere you looked was snow, snow and more snow.

We were treated to a ‘show-off’ exhibition by the coast-guard that raced around in their little speedboat, spinning over the wake of our boat, flinging up into the air as it crashed over the waves. I was so like…..flip!

the Coast-Guard showing off

Come on already!!! hahaha. So although we didn’t see any whales, we did see a most splendid ocean…blue, blue blue and then on the way back a most exquisite sunset. Extraordinary.

sunset…amazing colours

What an amazing 3 days, I loved every minute, even the cold. I loved the landscape, the snow, the colour of the water, the geysers <especially>, the rift in the continental plates, the waterfalls, the icelandic ponies <we saw some in the distance>, our nightly excursions to see the auroura, the traipsing around in the dark in waist deep snow, falling down holes LOL <I had just said to Cémanthe to be careful when my next step took me into a hole beneath the snow…we laughed so much!!!>, snow so powdery soft it feels like it doesn’t exist, the vast open vistas, the biting cold that chews are your nose and ears and fingers and toes….despite the layers of clothing, the quirky corrugated houses, the race to get indoors, the underfloor heating, the steaming hot showers that sting like hell at first and then ease frozen muscle and bones back to life, the slippery ground that sends you slip-sliding away, the fabulous sculptures <like Sun Voyager (Icelandic: Sólfar) a sculpture by Jón Gunnar Árnason (1931 – 1989). Sun Voyager is a dreamboat, an ode to the sun>,

Sun Voyager is a dreamboat, an ode to the sun

the extraordinary poly-tunnels that shine like alien life-forms in the dark; an eerie green light that can be seen from miles away powered and heated by the geothermal energy beneath the surface of the ground, where they grow tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers, cut flowers and potted plants, even bananas and grapes are grown in this way—but not usually on a commercial scale,

eerie green lights of the poly-tunnels

and the sheer exhilaration of being in such an amazing place and the excitement of wondering if and when a volcano was likely to erupt!!! And the people, so friendly, welcoming and just lovely.

Iceland rocks…..no pun intended!! I’ve created a video for your enjoyment….there are way too many photos to include them all on one blog. 😉 You can watch it here http://youtu.be/QNHVlRwbtOY

All I can say is ……I can highly recommend you plan a trip to this fantastic island in the ocean. It’s amazing!!!!

whale-watching with Elding Tours at Hafnarfjörður

So a little about Iceland. It’s a Nordic island between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a ridge along which the oceanic crust spreads and forms new oceanic crust. This part of the mid-ocean ridge is located above a mantle plume, causing Iceland to be subaerial (above the surface of the sea). The ridge marks the boundary between the Eurasian and North American Plates, and Iceland was created by rifting and accretion through volcanism along the ridge. Geologically the island includes parts of both continental plates.
The settlement of Iceland began in AD 874 when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island.

Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson

It is also home toÞingvallavatn, the largest natural lake in Iceland.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Iceland, but I can assure you that I will definitely be planning a 2nd trip, this time in summer

goodbye Iceland….I’ll be back 🙂

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