Author: Chris BJ

Just as my cold was finishing, I’ve managed to sprain my foot getting off the Flybus to Keflavik airport. So another day sitting in the hotel for me 🙁

Our hotel is in a popular area so is very noisy, and since it’s rather hot here, we had to leave the windows open – the hotel is rather proud of its ‘environmental’ ( ie cheapskate) rep, so no airconor propers. We are just around the corner from a rather swishy food market (think selfridges food hall) so i hobbled there for brunch. Now doug is exploring, and i have my foot up again. Sigh.

Tomorrow i hope to be mobile enough to go sightseeing.

Drive along the south coast to Landeyjarhofn harbour and take a ferry from Bakkafjara to Heimaey Island, the largest of the Westman Islands. Visit the puffins in Storhofdi, climb the crater of a recently active volcano and admire the flora growing in a new lava field.

Continue reading “Iceland days eight and nine”

Visit Skaftafell National Park, an area renowned for its natural beauty and dominated by the magnificent Vatnajokull – Europe’s largest glacier. Continue to the Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon, where huge icebergs drift through the still, deep waters.

I sat this one out because of my cold, and Doug said it wasn’t anything i’d be sorry to have missed.

But check out the view from the hotel!

Drive south past fertile farms and glacial rivers to Skogar and the Skogafoss waterfall. Visit the Thorvaldseyri farm, located at the foot of the infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcano, whose 2010 eruption shut down European airspace for over a week. Stop off at the Skogar Folk Museum before continuing to the dramatic Solheimajokull Glacier.

Continue reading “Iceland day six”

The tour begins with a transfer from Reykjavík to the Blue Lagoon where the guided tour starts at 14:00. From the Blue Lagoon we will drive to Grindavík fishing village where we will make a short stop at the fishing harbour. From Grindavík the journey continues along the coast and onwards through lava fields to our next stop at Krýsuvík geothermal area where you can take a walk between the boiling mud pools and sulphurous solfatares. The tour proceeds to the Kleifarvatn, largest lake on the Reykjanes peninsula. The lake is situated on the fissure zone of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is one of the deepest lakes of the country, 97 meters. In the year 2000 the water level shrunk dramatically after an earthquake. Today the lake level has recovered but on south shore of the lake you can still see steam rising up from the border of the lake from numerous hot springs which were revealed after the earthquake period. We will stop at a viewpoint close by the lake before heading back to Reykjavík.

Continue reading “Iceland – day five”

Today we flew to Akureyri, and our first stop was at the lovely Goðafoss waterfall. (Icelandic: waterfall of the gods or waterfall of the goði). From there were taken around lake Mývatn, whose name means ‘midge lake’! The horrible weather – rain and fog, so that the landscapej looked eerily like being on Dartmoor – at least meant the midges were absent, but they can be so thick in the air they’re like a solid wall. You can imagine my sorrow at missing that experience.

Continue reading “Iceland – Day four”

Couldn’t post yesterday as our flight back from the day tours was delayed three hours – no explanation and certainly no compensation or assistance getting back to our hotel. So it made a long day very long, ending close to 11 pm and it wasn’t appreciated, especially as we had to be at the airport again for 7.15 this morning.

Continue reading “Iceland Day three”

On day one we had a charming, breezy guide and odious companions. On day two, it was the opposite. The guide is doing for Icelandic tourism what Basil Fawlty did for the Torquay hospitality industry! But we didn’t let her spoil our day, and there was some fun to be had mocking her with other passnegers. Though her terrible English was incomprehensible to us most of the time, and unintelligible to the ESL passengers, which was a pity. We all ended up helping each other out using the shared second languages.

Many, many pictures of the pretty under the cut.

Continue reading “Iceland Day two”

Well, we’re here in Reykjavik, and already had our first big adventure. Being lazy and using the tour site’s descriptions:

Continue reading “Iceland Day one”