Buðir

We have arrived at our destination at the Hotel Buðir which is about 2 ½ hours north of Reykjavik. To say that we are having miserable weather is an understatement. It is pouring buckets of rain and very windy. I have to apologize right away for the quality of the photos today. First, much of the gorgeous scenery we had expected to see just isn’t visible, and then I’ve had to contend with the heavy rain which has poured onto the camera if I open a window to take a shot. A lot of the photos I took were out the front window of the car…I’ve avoided posting any with the windshield wipers in the way! First photo is of some volcanic looking mountains shortly after we left the city:

We decided to go through the Havelfjörður Tunnel instead of driving around the fjörd since we didn’t expect that the beautiful views would be in sight today. The waterfall we had planned to hike to was at the end of the fjord and because it was no day to do that hike, we opted for the tunnel. It cost us 900 Kronur, or $15 to drive through the 2 ½ mile tunnel. Remember, everything here is expensive! Here is the information map showing the dotted line of the tunnel under the fjord, and the shot of us coming out of the tunnel at the end (into the blinding light!). The tunnel was just cut out of the lava rock and not lined with tile until we got to the very end. Unfortunately, those photos didn’t turn out well in the dark tunnel.


When we reached Borganes at the other end of the tunnel, we stopped to get a cold drink and to use the toilet/WC/rest room…I have no clue what it’s called here because there was only one, not mens and ladies separate rooms, and the sign on the door didn’t give me a clue to what it was. Luckily the door was open so I could see it had what I needed! This is a photo taken from the parking lot. This was the largest town we went through.


Here is the sign for the Snæfellsnes Valley (dalir = valley). Our hotel is #19 on the chart. You can see Buðir on the map, on the south side of the peninsula about ¾ of the way down the coast:



The mountains are all volcanic with large striations across them. I wonder if that is caused by a build-up of the volcanoes or from glacier coming through. Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer. Photos of the mountains as we drove past:


Many had craggy jut-outs, so different from the mountains of New England which are so rounded off at the top:


We passed a little town (if you can call it that) with a lovely little church. We were amazed at how many churches we saw along the way, and each one had a few homes around it. We wondered if the pastors rotate through these village churches because we couldn’t imagine each would have their own pastor.



We passed a pond with lava rock all around it:


As we made the turn out onto the thin part of the peninsula, we saw Eldborg Crater in the distance. This was one of those things that interested Hubby and he thought we might hike up the trail to the crater rim to view the inside, but this journey was rained out as well. It reminded me a little of Devil's Tower, Wyoming in Close Encounters of a Third Kind, the way it just rose up out of the floor of the valley.


We saw some animals along the way. So far, we haven’t seen any cows but there are lots of horses (a bit smaller than the US variety but larger than the Shetlands we saw in Scotland) and many wooly sheep. One herd ran right in front of us!



We saw some amazing lava rock formations:


And some mountains in the distance:


We finally arrived at our hotel which is perched just out in the open with nothing around it except an old church that we can’t go in. It is on the edge of the ocean and the waves are high. Here is our room, on the corner with (what should be) magnificent views:


We do wish so much that we could see the mountains here but these are the views from our room in both directions:



We had a cup of tea, met some Americans from Rhode Island who are in Iceland for four days before they head to Norway. He is actually originally from Norway but has been in the US for about 50 years. Tonight’s dinner will be interesting. On the menu: cod, monkfish, whale (!!), a vegetarian option, and lamb. I’m going to have to be adventurous so I think I’ll have the lamb. It’s something I don’t cook because I think I had it too often as a child. It’s a little gamey for me, but I haven’t had it for years so it’s time to try again. It will cost us about $60 just for the entrée. They appear to only sell wine by the bottle, and the cheapest wines were about $100 each…..we’ve decided to have water! We are a captive audience here…..there is no where else to eat!

Now that I’ve written all this in Word, I have to go find a place in the hotel where the wireless works so I can post this. If the service is good, I should be able to upload the photos…if not, well you’ll have to wait to see them until tomorrow. Oh and by the way, our hotel for the next two nights has changed. We got “bumped”! Good thing I had Internet yesterday and received the email. So the former hotel arranged for another hotel for us. We'll be at the Hotel Selfoss, a 4 star hotel in a larger town (Selfoss) so it should be okay.

Another Few Things from Reykjavik

If you haven't already done so, please read my post of last night because that's the "real" post about this very neat city. This post is just to blog about a few little things....none too important but Hubby is still sound asleep and I, of course, am not. What better way to entertain myself than with a little blogging. Ha!

First, my homepage on my laptop is set to Google so whenever I open a browser, up comes my search page. But Google is smart, very, very smart. It knows where you are in the world! When we were in England and Scotland, the page came up to Google.UK which was fine....I could read it with no problem, but here, oh my goodness....Google.IS is something else entirely. There is a place to click on so that it changes to English, but it's interesting to see the page completely in Icelandic. See it here.

Next, I took some photos of our bathroom here because it's so different. I mentioned last night that it's two steps down, but it's also irregularly shaped, not a square or rectangle. It's all black and white and the sink is quite trendy. Also, I know someone who has a constant battle with her boss about whether the toilet seat should be left up or always put back down after use. Here, the button to flush the toilet is located behind the seat, so you have to put the seat down in order to flush. How smart is that? There are actually two buttons on the "flusher", one gives a quick flush with less water, and the other, larger button is for a full flush for the times you really need that! This all may be TMI, but I did think it was interesting and would save a lot of water over time. Here's some photos....and you can see me in the white, fluffy hotel robe. Not a terribly attractive shot, but oh well. No way to photograph the bathroom without including myself.

Right now it's absolutely storming outside. Our room is on the top floor and we have skylights and the rain is just making such a racket pounding down on them. The wind is whipping out there. But Hubby is still sleeping through it all, or maybe he's just in denial because he had such a wonderful hike planned for us today. I think our plan is to partake of the hotel breakfast and then hang here at this hotel until close to the noon check-out hour since we can't check into our next hotel until 2 PM. Never the less, it should be an interesting drive north, even in the rain. We probably won't see all the mountains, but we do have to come back down from there tomorrow when the weather should be a bit better. This is the first bad weather we've had that has compromised our plans, so we really can't complain, can we? Well, yes, I do think Hubby can because this is the part of the trip he was looking forward to the most.

Reykjavik, Iceland

We were up very early this morning to get to the Glasgow airport for our flight to Iceland. We weren't sure how long the drive would take us since it was rush hour, but thankfully we breezed right along and had no problem with returning the car or getting checked into our flight. We actually sat for an hour and a half at the gate. Two interesting things about the flight: there was a blind man with a seeing eye dog on the flight. I've never seen a dog on board a plane before. He was a big yellow lab and just so attentive to his master. There was also another yellow lab in a crate who went into the hold. I felt bad for him because it was raining and he sat out there in the cold waiting to be loaded. Poor puppy! I thought about you, Helga....you would have been really upset!

We were surprised to find it sunny when we arrived in Reykjavik! We had seen rain for every day of our trip here but today is gorgeous, although a bit cool. We checked into our hotel, the Radisson SAS right in the heart of the city, and are really happy with our room. It has a rather Scandinavian feel to it....hardwood floor, IKEA-like furniture, and a very contemporary feel to it. Our bathroom is all black and white and is two steps down from the bedroom. We're going to have to be careful in the middle of the night!

Once we got organized, we took a brisk walk up hill to the Hallsgrimskirkja, the national cathedral here in Iceland. It is the most beautiful structure, very modern, and simplistic, but absolutely amazing. I could just imagine a bride walking down the aisle in this church! The colors were reminiscent of the ocean. We took the elevator part way up to the steeple then climbed the rest of the way. When we got to the top, the views were breathtaking. I'll post all four directions below. Hubby and I were the only ones up there which felt odd, but nice. While we were there the carillon struck the half hour.....was it loud!!! I took photos of the cathedral's history, and some of you might be surprised to know that 90% of the Icelandic population is Lutheran. And the country is unique in that it has been Christian ever since it was first settled.

These are the views from the top of the steeple. The colors of the homes and their roofs are really striking:

The altar was really beautiful with fresh flowers adorning it:

The baptismal font was the most amazing piece of art. The top, which holds the water, seems like it's made of water itself:

And the organ....wow! This is for Patrick who would definitely love to have this organ! It has 5275 pipes!!! And the console is movable around the sanctuary:

Here are photos of the history of the church.....really rather interesting. You will have to click on the photos to make them larger so they can be read:

After we left the cathedral, we walked around the Tjornin, a lake in the heart of the city. We saw the city hall, a very modern building whose columns come down into the water. Then we walked to Austurvollur Square, a small park surrounded by many great buildings including the Parliament and an old Lutheran Church. You can see our shadows in the last photo.

We finally decided it was time to try Icelandic cuisine and we were very happy with our choice. We picked a quiet little restaurant (probably quiet because it was only 5:30 and here dinner is eaten much later!). Jim had a chicken dish, with potato and vegetables that had such a beautiful presentation. I had a pasta dish with six large spinach and cheese tortellini, with Icelandic lobster, in a cheese sauce with more spinach and mushrooms. It was phenomenal! We each had a glass of the house wine (at $12 a piece!). Food here is very, very expensive and with the cost of living so high, almost everyone here works and most people are over-extended on their credit. Some can't pay their mortgages. It's a sad situation. There is a 7% tax on food, and a 24% tax on alcohol! I won't even tell you what dinner cost, but at least it was wonderful, and hey, we're on vacation!! Here is a photo of the street our restaurant was on. I loved the lights that looked like tulips.

Tomorrow we head north to Budir which is "at the end of the habitable world" according to the hotel website. We'll be a captive audience there as there's nothing else there! Tomorrow is supposed to pour rain unfortunately, so we may not be able to hike to the tall waterfall as we had planned. We'll have to hope for the best. Tomorrow's photos should be very different. The landscape here looks like the moon, all volcanic and black with lava. The cracks in the earth are just amazing.

The Internet service here is just great and the upload speeds are the fastest we've seen, so I've picture-ized yesterday's blog. If you read it yesterday, go back and see the photos.

I can't believe we're really in Iceland. I said to Hubby over dinner that I would never have dreamed this would be a place we would visit. But it is really beautiful here (I'm running out of adjectives!) and I think once we get out into the countryside we're going to be in awe of the scenery.

Bens and Glens

First, I have to apologize. The Internet here at the Hilton won't seem to allow me to upload many of my photos to my blog which is so frustrating. I have all the places where the photos should go, but not all the photos! Grrrr! This is so frustrating!! So, I will try again in the morning before we leave, but if not, these photos will get uploaded from Iceland. If you've already read this blog, check back again in 24 hours for the photos.

We left Inverness this morning after a good Tesco breakfast of juice, fruit, and pastries. Tesco is a big chain grocery store here, and Hubby made a trip there while I showered. We were totally unimpressed with the Inverness Marriott and their breakfast was overpriced and not very good. Turned out though that breakfast was included in the price of the room but we thought we’d paid £30 for it yesterday, so we figured that a Tesco breakfast would be cheaper and better. Oh well, but it was a better breakfast!

We left the hotel and drove through Inverness, over the bridge and then out into the countryside. On the way, we saw hikers with backpacks, hiking boots, but wearing kilts! You’d never see that at home! We traveled along Loch Ness, and although we didn’t see the Loch Ness Monster, we did see some beautiful views. We stopped at Urquhart Castle, a castle ruins on the Loch which was built in the 1200’s. We saw the 8 minute video about it’s history which was really so well done. The theater of the new visitor’s center had long drapes behind the screen, and when the video was finished, the curtains opened to windows with a view of the castle. Very, very cool!!! We spent at least an hour walking through the ruins and really enjoyed the history here. We also enjoyed the young Italian couple whose photo we took for them. They were having such a good time and we were happy to help with their memories. Here are the photos from Urquhart Castle:

The Visitors Center....see the bow window on the right? That's the theater.

From there we traveled south to Fort William, all along Loch Ness with its commanding views. This part of the post is for Brad and Allison who spent time here in April of 2005 while here for Charlotte and Robbie’s wedding. They had an awesome time and saw all these sights long before we did, but we couldn’t help but think of them today, knowing they had already seen all this before us. At Fort William, we headed east to the Glen Nevis visitors center. Here you can see Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in all of the U.K. We had a picnic lunch and then walked a bit of the trail. But time being restricted, we didn’t have time to climb the mountain. (secretly, I was quite happy about that!). We met a lovely old couple along the way who told us about our drive ahead, and the fact that 25,000 people had invaded Fort William yesterday for a bike race in the rain. We were glad we were hunting dead ancestors in Invergordon in the rain instead! Today was a gorgeous day, sunny and pretty warm and one of the days when the top of Ben Nevis is actually visible. Nine days out of ten, it is shrouded in clouds. Here are some gorgeous photos of the Ben Nevis area:

We stopped in Fort William to buy a duffle bag because our suitcases were at the weight limit when flying here. We’ve packed the duffle with all our heavy stuff like books and dirty laundry. Heaven help the TSA if they decide to open that bag for inspection!! Dirty undies everywhere! We parked in a “Pay and Display” car park while shopping and you find these all over the place here. You must park, then go to the pay meter to pay your parking fee, then display your ticket on the dashboard. You even find these car parks at the grocery store. Imagine having to pay for parking at the grocery store!!!

From Fort William we again headed south toward Glasgow, and drove through the Grampian Mountains. Photos:

We continued along Loch Lomond. This is the largest body of water in all of the U.K. The views were gorgeous but Hubby didn’t see many of them because he was driving. The roads along the Loch are so narrow and although the speed limit is posted at 60 mph, and the locals seems to be able to do that, we poked along at around 40 mph. Normally I'd be frustrated with Hubby for driving so slow, but honestly, I would have been frightened to go any faster. Because the road was so narrow and so harrowing to drive, we never did get any good photos of Loch Lomond, but oh well….think of Lake Winnipesaukee but smaller. Remember the song:

“You take the high road and I’ll take the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland before ye.
For me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.”

This song was written by a Jacobite supporter, thinking that he would not live to come home to Scotland. Hence, the low road, or death, was his fate. Rather sad.

Things to blog about: there have been Americans everywhere. We have tried hard to blend in with the locals and not stand out like obnoxious Americans. Believe me, you can see them coming a mile away!! Some Americans are so loud, so obvious, and so horrible.

We've bought some nice English candy for snacks on our journey. One of my favorites every time we come here is "Jelly Babies". The candy is a jelly but not like gummy bears. It's softer and coated with a fine confectioner's sugar. They are really nice. Also we had Cadbury "Shots", like big fat M&M's.

We are staying at the Glasgow Hilton tonight and this is the first place I've ever stayed where the bathroom had a bidet!

Here the locals will ask you “Where do you stay at?”. What they mean is “Where do you live?”. The first reaction is to tell them what hotel you’re staying at!

We have seen a lot of Highland cows here. There look a lot more like yaks than like cows, all shaggy. So funny to see them along the side of the road. In one case, we saw a sign that said, “Beware, Bull loose”.

Interesting place names:

Brackletter
Happy Valley (dedicated to Brad and Allison!)
Oinch
Bridge at Oinch

Today’s interesting sign: “Oncoming traffic in the middle of the road”…telling us about the narrowness of the roads and the fact that trucks would be in the middle of the road as we came around a bend!!!

We also came upon a “spin bridge” at Laggan where the road was closed so that the bridge could “turn” to allow boats to flow through the passage way. Instead of a draw bridge where the road lifts up on each side, the road just turned on a pivot while we watched the boats go through.

I'm sure there will be some of you who'll wonder what we had to eat today! So, after the Tesco breakfast, we snacked for lunch on bananas, cinnamon rolls, and pistascios. Is that eclectic, or what? Tonight, unable to face another big expensive dinner, we went to the grocery store next door to the hotel and bought cheese and crackers, shrimp with a spicy sauce, a bottle of pinot noir and fruit, OJ, and scones for breakfast in the morning. Because we don't have a fridge in this room, our food is out on the window sill, ala college days! It's keeping quite cool out there. Hahahaha!

I’m cutting this post short because it’s late and we have to be up early in the morning to catch our flight. Internet from here on will be spotty in Iceland. Hopefully I’ll get to keep posting because this will be a very interesting part of our trip.

More tomorrow hopefully, and please check back for the photos from today....