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DAY 1 - FRIDAY JULY 15: We flew Icelandair. Definitely the nicest airline we have travelled with to date. The plane even left 30 minutes early and arrived over an hour early. Lucky us! We arrived at this beautiful apartment more than a little weary about 5:30 a.m. (3 hour time difference). We perked up and got really excited when we got here and took a bunch of pics.
We are all pretty glad that we didn't have much planned for our first day...jet lag and flying through the night takes it toll. We did go to the Blue Lagoon at 6 pm on our arrival day. That gave us lots of time to sleep, unpack, get groceries and take the drive back to the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is closer to the airport. It feels a bit like driving on another planet because the geography is so...different! The lagoon is an awesome place to shake off the jet lag.
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The silica mud found in the Blue Lagoon is supposed to be very good for your skin. So we all indulged and took a bunch of fun pics.
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Matthew loved his blue slushie at the Blue Lagoon. We got lots of laughs over the name of the slushie on the cup too! I have been telling the kids for years that there isn't any nutrition in their favorite junk foods. I may have even said that it is full of crap once or twice :) ! So imagine Matthew's delight when he discovered that he was indeed drinking a blue glass of 'Krap'! (Google translate tells me this morning that the word in Icelandic for slush is 'krap.' )
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DAY TWO - SATURDAY JULY 16
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We had hot dogs for lunch at the red and white hot dog stand. This is the only inexpensive food in Iceland (about $4 for a hot dog.) Fish and chips will cost about $30. On the tour it was explained that restaurant food is expensive because wages are high and so are taxes. (HST is 24%!) But they have free university and health care and their unemployment rate is high at the moment at 2.4% !
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The life-size statue of Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason (14 December 1867 – 30 October 1941) is on the left below. She was the first woman to become a member of the Althing, the parliament of Iceland. Icelandic people are very proud of their gender equality. Today, 29 of the 63 senators are female. lceland is the first country in the world to elect a female to lead their country. (Vigdís Finnbogadóttir served as president for 16 years. )
On our second day in Iceland, we did the citywalk tour. This was an excellent way to learn about the city and the country- and to see a whole bunch of statues! The one above is the 'Unknown Bureaucrat' and is situated outside city hall to welcome all officials on their way to work. The viking on the top left is the founder of Iceland. If you look closely, you can see that he is wearing pink lipstick. The lipstick was added a few years ago by a visitor of the Reykavik Gay Pride festival held each year in August.
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Day 3- Sunday, July 17th-Today was exactly the sort of day we had imagined that we would have in Iceland- a day full of hiking, hot rivers and exploring. We were on the road about 11 am today and headed to Reykjadalur, a beautiful valley with a hot river running through it. The hike to the river was about 75 minutes -mostly uphill! We ate our picnic lunch in the river -literally- and then hiked back to the car. The panoramic picture is of the very short hike (10 minutes or so) to the underground cave Arnarker. On this second hike, we felt like we had Iceland all to ourselves! Nothing but lava fields for miles!
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DAY 4 - MONDAY JULY 18 Today a beauty of a day- blue skies and warm enough for shorts ! We visited some of the highlights on the Golden Circle Route. You can basically drive a loop route leaving from the capital. We decided to do a shorter version of this (travelling with kids) and we drove directly to Gulfoss and then worked our way back to Reykavik along the same route. The drive was about two hours to Gulfoss and then we stopped at Geyser and the Pingveller National Park. Isabelle helped me out with making the video. You can see from the pictures that there are a lot more people at these main attractions. We are going to get an earlier start tomorrow to try and beat the tour buses to the south! Even though today wasn't a hiking day, my fitbit tells me me we still logged about 10 km walking along the trails at each stop. I think I'd like to come back to Iceland again for some more hiking.....maybe in late September when we could catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights and still get some daylight hours !
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The sun has set on our Iceland Adventure.
PARIS, HERE WE COME !
PARIS, HERE WE COME !
DAY 5 - TUESDAY JULY 19 -THE SOUTH The gallery of pictures is from our adventures in the south. We planned to visit Black Sands Beach, a folk museum and the waterfalls shown. The Seljalandfoss waterfall is pretty amazing. There is a trail that goes directly behind the falls. The kids loved getting soaked by the spray as we travelled behind the falls. We ended up skipping the folk museum and following a sign for a glacier walk. We walked on one tiny edge of the Sólheimajökull Glacier. Seeing the tip of the Sólheimajökull Glacier was a delightful detour. To go on the organized glacier tour. we would need an ice pick, axe, helmet, a guide, and about $600 for the four of us to climb. The view from the bottom was priceless! :) Jason and Matthew also stopped into to a tiny museum on the side of the road and watched a twenty minute video about the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano that erupted in 2011.You can see the volcano from the road. (Isabelle and I looked at the volcano from the car and had a twenty minute nap! ) The weather here in Iceland is at best unpredictable. We needed raingear and warm clothes on Black Beach as the wind was incredible on this shore. The beach is black as the sand is volcanic rock that has been pummelled by waves. We saw puffins way up the cliffs here. We hope to get a closer look at these pretty birds tomorrow as we head out on a short puffin tour.
DAY 6 July 20 LAST DAY IN ICELAND - We started our last day in Iceland with a puffin boating tour, followed by fish and chips and a restaurant on the waterfront. It was so lovely that we ate our meal on the outside patio! . An excellent meal. This was followed up with a visit to the National Museum, a trip to the mall and a swim in the Arbaejarlaug outdoor pool. These outdoor pools are everywhere in Reykavik and are heated all year round. There were several hot tubs of varying temperatures, a water slide, a lane pool, and lots of spots for just lounging in the warm water. We could definitely use something like this in PEI. Too bad we didn't have an endless supply of hot water underground. They even heat the water at the beach in Reykavik! We ended the day by watching the sunset at about 11pm. It never really gets dark, only dusky, for a few hours. We have to leave for the airport by 4:30 a.m. so we might even see the sunrise! Iceland was magnificent and a great kick-off to our European Adventure !