The Golden Circle

Today has been such a fun day!! We left the hotel early to drive The Golden Circle. There are three major attractions to see along the way, and thinking we might avoid the tour busses out of Reykjavik if we went to the furthest one away first, we headed to Gullfoss(The Golden Falls). This is an amazing waterfall and Hulda Gilanson told us we had to go see it, and she was right! The first photo is of the falls, and the second photo is a shot of the viewing area, but you can see it's covered in ice! There was a path closer to the falls, but people were having a hard time standing up on the ice, so we decided not to venture out there. In the third photo, you can see me all bundled up with icicles hanging off the railings. The wind was really quite strong here so it was hard to actually take pictures because of all the spray that hit the camera. We encountered a group of young Germans here, not on a tour bus, but in five huge SUV vehicles with enormous wheels. We figured they must have been going on an excursion into inner Iceland where only those kinds of vehicles can go. We wore our hiking gear today and felt "with it" in our North Face jackets. The other brand you see here is 66ºNorth, and Icelandic brand named for the 66º latitude that runs through Iceland.


We had wonderful views of the Langjökull glacier today. It was an incredible sight! Seeing a glacier for real is really a great experience.


From the falls, we headed to Geysir, where there is much thermal energy beneath the surface of the ground. There are several geysers here, with Geysir being the largest. It used to erupt quite often but has been very quiet for years. Now a smaller geyser called Strokkur erupts every 5 minutes of so. The temperature of the water is 100ºC or 212ºF, also called "boiling"! It was funny to watch everyone stand around, cameras ready, to catch the big photo-op. But, we did it too! The place stunk of sulpher but there were places to stand where it was so nice and warm, given the cold temps today. Here are the photos of Strokkurs eruption:



There is another area of pools of hot water and one of them is just an incredible shade of bright blue due to the minerals in the water. I've never seen anything like it. This is also what the Blue Lagoon looks like only it's enormous....we go there tomorrow before we go to the airport.


At Geysir, we stopped at the visitor's center and had a cup of tea and shared some cinnamon rolls. It was interesting to watch the other tourists. Lots of Germans, French, and Japanese. Not as many Americans today, thank goodness! But we did have them in the hotel restaurant again tonight and they were just as loud.

From Geysir, we traveled on to þingvellir, a national park here. We now know it's pronounced "thing-vet-ler". It has two major significances. First this is where the plates of the earth come together with Europe on one side, and North American on the other. The plates are in motion with a drop in the crevasse of 2 cm each year. There are 100 volcanoes in this area. Also this was the site of the first Icelandic Parliament in 930 A.D. and the Republic of Iceland was formed here in 1944. There is a small church across the river from the crevasse, and it stands on the site of the former church which was built in 1018. The cracks in the earth's surface are quite something to see. There is also a good-sized waterfall here which people climbed up on the rocks to take photos of. The water from this falls runs into þingvallavatn (the lake). Here are some photos of þingvellir. Please note the one of me with my new Icelandic wool mittens which I just couldn't resist in the Gullfoss gift shop!








Here is the map of the area we covered today. You can see Gullfoss at the lower right third of the map, with Geysir just to it's left, and þingvellir just a bit more to the west. In between you can see the four glaciers in white, with Langjökull being the largest and most visible.
Now for some bits and pieces of things. First, here is the car we've had here in Iceland. It's a Toyota Avensis, and it's like a Corolla, but the there is a Corolla here but it's smaller. Same name, but smaller car than at home.


We drove down some gravel roads here, which is not unusual. Not all roads are paved. In fact there are interior parts of Iceland that you cannot drive into in a passenger car. The Avis rep told us that they do not charge for small rock "dings" in the paint because the roads are so bad. The national speed limit is 90 kph (about 60 mph) but in places it goes down to 70, or 50, and through towns it can be 30. There are also single lane bridges. Here's a shot of the gravel road we were on today:


We were surprised by the flat spacious plain that goes from the mountains to the coast. We both expected the scenery today to be treed and wooded, and a lot like New England mountains, but the plain stretches for miles from the sea to the mountains and nothing much grows on it, just shrubby growth and moss. Apparently Iceland was quite wooded once upon a time, but it has been de-forrested. There appears to be some effort to plant trees however. Here's a photo of the plains:


We saw some more animals today. More sheep, black wooley ones this time, very close to the road. And we also saw some Icelandic horses....they have very long manes. These mares were guarding their babies who were lying down. We also saw a cow and a bull in a loving embrace....very strange! Today there have been horse paths all along the roadway, like we might have a bike path at home. There are lots of horse farms here.


People here seem to have vacation homes out in the middle of nowhere. They don't seem to be by a lake or river, but they are definitely different than the regular homes. They are far apart and in communities.


We think that there is not regular trash pick-up here. All along the roads we've seen what look like dumpsters. At first we thought they were for recycling but now we realize people must bring all their trash and recyclables to these collection spots.

Every little town seems to have it's own town pool. You really can't swim in the ocean or lakes here....they are way too cold. So there are pools even in little towns.

We were also surprised by the number or large SUV's here. You'd think that will the cost of gas averaging over $5 a gallon, people would want little economical cars, but there is a demand for the big SUV's because they are needed out on the back roads. Also gas stations are not on every block....you can go for miles without seeing one, and so you have to make sure you have enough gas for any trip you make.

Tomorrow evening we fly home. We plan to stop at the Blue Lagoon on the way since our flight isn't until suppertime. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but after talking to some very nice elderly ladies from St. Louis today, they told us that there are showers and blow dryers in the bath houses and all you have to do is make a mad dash from the lagoon to the bath house in the 40º air and you'll be fine. You can rent towels there and we'll just have to have a big plastic bag for our swim suits when we're done. These same little ladies will be on our flight tomorrow.....they fly to Boston to meet a tour group headed for Nova Scotia.

Tonight at dinner, we went over our favorites, our least favorities, and our surprises and disappointments. That sounds like a post for when we get home. I do plan to post tomorrow night with photos from the Blue Lagoon so please check back.

Neither of us is looking forward to the end of vacation. I will say I'll be happy to be back in my own bed. These European beds (two twins pushed together so they have a big crack down the middle) are not great. They don't have sheets and blankets, but have "puffies"...down comforters in a duvat cover which are never long enough to tuck into the end of the bed and are way too short. How would my #1 son survive here??? Most of the time, my arms are hanging out and cold, and if I tuck in my arms, I have to pull my legs way up so my feet don't hang out! Brrrr!

I hope you've enjoyed today's photos. I took 78 pictures and it was hard to decide which ones were post-worthy. I've really enjoyed doing the blog, but most admit, it was more fun to do when the up-load speed was fast. These last two days it's taken over 3 hours to put the blog up for posting! But, hey, I'm on vacation with nothing else to do!!