We checked into an airport hotel, Courtyard Marriott Keflavík, the afternoon of May 10 in advance of our flight back to Florida the next day on Iceland Air. Settled into our room, I checked the weather and news and learned that a solar storm was predicted with the expectation that the aurora borealis, that is, … Continue reading
We spent a couple days exploring the Snæfellsnes peninsula, shown below. For some reason I involuntarily giggle every time I see the word Snæfellsnes, hearing in the far reaches of my memory “snaggletooth” or “snuffles less.” Must be early onset dementia. Anyway, the western end of the peninsula is Snæfellsjökull National Park, named after the … Continue reading
The original plan for the end of our trip included several days in the Vestfirðir, that is, the Westfjords, the sparsely populated fjords of the northwest. The attraction of the Westfjords was puffins, specifically, those at the Látrabjarg cliffs. But, we were lucky enough to have seen puffins on the east coast, so we altered … Continue reading
From Mývatn, we took two days to drive west to the Snæfellsnes peninsula, stopping for the night at Hotel Laugarbakki about midway. I’ve circled in red on the map, below, our start and finish. While the scenery is beautiful everywhere in Iceland, we chose to mostly bypass the central north. But if you’re in need … Continue reading
In the afternoon, after our hike around the crater, we went horseback riding around the lake. We arranged our ride with Safari Hestar at the bottom of lake Mývatn. Our guide was the owner of the farm. My horse, the one with the black mane, was named Ster-mumble-mumble-stur, “Strong Horse.” I called him Thor. Something … Continue reading
We stayed at another Fosshotel near Mývatn, a shallow lake surrounded by an area of active volcanism. Here’s the view from the hotel looking across the lake. Our main purpose for stopping at Mývatn was to hike the Hverfjall caldera (elev. 1,437 ft.), a fairly symmetrical crater left by an exploding volcano about 2,500 years … Continue reading
Friday, May 3, we drove northwest from Egilsstaðir to Mývatn, a distance of about 100 miles. As you can see, there is more snow in the interior of the island than there is along the coast. Although the day started out cloudy, the sun broke through and it turned out to be another beautiful day. … Continue reading
At breakfast, we overheard the proprietor of our hotel tell some other guests that Puffins had been sighted at Borgarfjörður Eystri, a fjord about 80 miles to the northeast of Egilsstaðir. In the afternoon, we decided to drive out there to see them. In order to get to Borgarfjörður Eystri, we had to drive over … Continue reading
We stayed in Egilsstaðir for two nights, spending the intervening day, Thursday, visiting several sites in the region. Our first stop was Stuðlagil canyon, a ravine carved by the Jökla River. There are two ways to see the canyon: from the east side after crossing the river downstream and hiking back; or from the west … Continue reading
As I previously mentioned, we went on our Super Jeep excursion on the Icelandic holiday known as the First Day of Summer. It turns out that Icelanders celebrate that event twice every year, the second time being the 1st of May, a national holiday throughout most of Europe, known as “May Day.” This year, May … Continue reading
We started our day by backtracking to the Skaftafell visitor center at Vatnajökull National Park to get advice from the rangers there about which glaciers were the best to visit at this time of year. The Vatnajökull, which translates to “Glacier of Lakes” (literally, water [vatna] glacier [jökull]), is the largest ice cap in Iceland, … Continue reading
We went for a nice, leisurely Sunday Drive today, April 28, starting out from Vík. From there, the Ring Road passes through a region known as the Mýrdalssandur, a volcanic outwash plain formed by eruptions from the nearby Katla volcano. The Ring Road was completed in 1974, but this section was rebuilt in 1987. At … Continue reading
We spent two days exploring the southernmost point of Iceland, shown on the map, below. Our lodging at the Volcano Hotel is marked by the red dot. The nearby town of Vík, also known as Vík í Mýrdal, is labeled. It’s the southernmost town in Iceland, population about 750. The other locations to take notice … Continue reading
The actual stairway to heaven has over 3,000 steps. Since there are only 527 steps to get to the top of the Skógafoss, where the Skóga River plunges over a cliff before flowing south into the North Atlantic Ocean, I guess I still have a few more to go. Assuming that’s my final destination, of … Continue reading
On Thursday, April 25, we went on an all day, small group tour from the Midgard basecamp at Hvolsvöllur called the Þórsmörk Super Jeep adventure. Þórsmörk loosely translates to Thor’s valley. Thor, of course, is the Norse Thunder God. You know, the guy with the gigantic hammer. Leaving Hvolsvöllur, we travelled east on the Ring … Continue reading
The sites we’ve visited so far have been on the “Golden Circle” route that is easily accessible from Reykjavík by tour bus. The most popular attractions on the Golden Circle are Thingvellir, Gullfoss and the geothermal area surrounding Great Geysir, the subjects of my last two posts. The last Golden Circle site we visited was … Continue reading
If you read the news, you might get the sensation that the world is currently being pulled apart. Here in Iceland, that’s literally the case. Our first stop after leaving Reykjavík was the rift valley encompassing Þingvellir National Park. The letter “Þ” is pronounced “th,” so the English version would be Thingvellir, probably one of … Continue reading
Nearly two-thirds of the 400,000 citizens of Iceland live in and around the capital city of Reykjavík (pronounced “Rayk-ya-veek”). We only spent one day there, Monday, April 22, which, coincidentally, was both Earth Day and Passover. After landing at Keflavík Airport late Sunday afternoon and picking up our rental car, we drove directly to our … Continue reading
It’s been awhile since my last post. Travel restrictions during the COVID era resulted in the cancellation of several trips, but we’re catching up now. I didn’t blog during our last two excursions: a trans-Atlantic cruise to England and traveling around Cornwall, Wales and the Cotswolds in 2022; and a photo safari to Kruger National … Continue reading
The Road Less Traveled 