The Golden Circle
Today we took a bus tour of "The Golden Circle," reportedly the one tour you really must take. We had better weather and a friendlier group and the places we visited were quite stunning.
We overslept this morning, but had just time to grab breakfast before the van showed up to collect us and take us out to the terminal to catch our tourbus. We got perhaps 20 minutes out, when something went wrong with the bus, so we coasted to a stop on the side of the road and all stood around in the field, admiring the variety of moss and the view of the mountains, until another bus came to collect us.
Our first stop--mostly to give us a chance to use the facilities--was at a greenhouse called 'Eden' with Adam & Eve carved on the wooden doors (front on the outside, rear on the inside). Apparently they manage to grow a substantial part of their fruits & vegetables in greenhouses heated geothermally.
We made brief stops at the Kerid crater lake--where the wind was so strong it blew my sunglasses off, but J. leapt to retrieve them--and at the church at Skaholt. That was the site of the first bishopric in Iceland, after the country converted to Christianity en masse around the year 1000, and there are excavations alongside the current church that are uncovering the former bishop´s house and school, destroyed by fire several hundred years back.
Our first major stop was at Gulfoss, the stunningly beautiful waterfall considered the most spectacular in a country full of gorgeous cataracts. One of the things that often astonishes me in other countries is the public access to sites that would be much more restricted in the US. At Gulfoss you can get close enough to dangle your feet in the falls, if you really wanted to.
Next we travelled to Geysir, home of the hot spring that gave geysers their name. That one no longer erupts except after earthquakes, but it is in a group of hot springs and another one, Stokkur ("The Churn") goes off every 3-10 minutes. Just before the plume, the water bubbles up into this gorgeous blue dome that looks more like a living thing than a geothermal phenomenon. And the the water shoots straight up into the sky--wheeeeee!
We spent an hour getting lunch at the visitor center across the road--their hot dogs weren´t as good as the ones we got at the stand yesterday, but still quite tasty--and visiting the "Multimedia Experience" with an earthquake pad and information about Iceland´s precarious and often violent geology.
Back on the bus, we snoozed our way to Thingvellir, the site where the Althing--the world´s first parliament--gathered annually to hear the Lawspeaker recite the laws from the Law Rock. The valley they picked happens to be on the Midatlantic Ridge, where Iceland is growing by about 2cm/year. The Althing was re-established in Reykjavik in the 19th century, as part of the process of independence from Denmark, and meets across the street from our hotel. Thingvellir was an amazing landscape and we were glad to have the opportunity to stroll across the meandering streams and up the cliffs.
By the time we were done there, it was 4:30 and we headed back into the city, actually staying awake most of the way and chatting with some of the other travellers on the bus. After having had no rain today--we actually saw blue sky a couple of times--and warmer temperatures (one sign said 10C as we hit the city line), it was fine for it to start drizzling as we made our way back to the hotel.
Tonight we´re planning to dine at Via Tjornina, described in several of our guidebooks as being both "the place to go for fish in Reykjavik" and "like eating in an Icelandic kitchen of the 1950´s". So we´re hoping for an interesting experience and a good meal.
We overslept this morning, but had just time to grab breakfast before the van showed up to collect us and take us out to the terminal to catch our tourbus. We got perhaps 20 minutes out, when something went wrong with the bus, so we coasted to a stop on the side of the road and all stood around in the field, admiring the variety of moss and the view of the mountains, until another bus came to collect us.
Our first stop--mostly to give us a chance to use the facilities--was at a greenhouse called 'Eden' with Adam & Eve carved on the wooden doors (front on the outside, rear on the inside). Apparently they manage to grow a substantial part of their fruits & vegetables in greenhouses heated geothermally.
We made brief stops at the Kerid crater lake--where the wind was so strong it blew my sunglasses off, but J. leapt to retrieve them--and at the church at Skaholt. That was the site of the first bishopric in Iceland, after the country converted to Christianity en masse around the year 1000, and there are excavations alongside the current church that are uncovering the former bishop´s house and school, destroyed by fire several hundred years back.
Our first major stop was at Gulfoss, the stunningly beautiful waterfall considered the most spectacular in a country full of gorgeous cataracts. One of the things that often astonishes me in other countries is the public access to sites that would be much more restricted in the US. At Gulfoss you can get close enough to dangle your feet in the falls, if you really wanted to.
Next we travelled to Geysir, home of the hot spring that gave geysers their name. That one no longer erupts except after earthquakes, but it is in a group of hot springs and another one, Stokkur ("The Churn") goes off every 3-10 minutes. Just before the plume, the water bubbles up into this gorgeous blue dome that looks more like a living thing than a geothermal phenomenon. And the the water shoots straight up into the sky--wheeeeee!
We spent an hour getting lunch at the visitor center across the road--their hot dogs weren´t as good as the ones we got at the stand yesterday, but still quite tasty--and visiting the "Multimedia Experience" with an earthquake pad and information about Iceland´s precarious and often violent geology.
Back on the bus, we snoozed our way to Thingvellir, the site where the Althing--the world´s first parliament--gathered annually to hear the Lawspeaker recite the laws from the Law Rock. The valley they picked happens to be on the Midatlantic Ridge, where Iceland is growing by about 2cm/year. The Althing was re-established in Reykjavik in the 19th century, as part of the process of independence from Denmark, and meets across the street from our hotel. Thingvellir was an amazing landscape and we were glad to have the opportunity to stroll across the meandering streams and up the cliffs.
By the time we were done there, it was 4:30 and we headed back into the city, actually staying awake most of the way and chatting with some of the other travellers on the bus. After having had no rain today--we actually saw blue sky a couple of times--and warmer temperatures (one sign said 10C as we hit the city line), it was fine for it to start drizzling as we made our way back to the hotel.
Tonight we´re planning to dine at Via Tjornina, described in several of our guidebooks as being both "the place to go for fish in Reykjavik" and "like eating in an Icelandic kitchen of the 1950´s". So we´re hoping for an interesting experience and a good meal.