The blog is so hopelessly behind that I have decided to leap forward to March this year, only a month ago, and our short visit to Iceland.
The 3 months in England will be written up one day, when I have decided the best structure (probably not simple sequence-of-events) and can devote some time to it.
Icelandair offers pretty good fares between North America and Europe, and allows up to 7 nights in Iceland at no extra cost. All flights are into or out of Keflavik Airport.
Iceland is famously expensive, and we can confirm that the reputation is justified. However, some homes welcome visitors through Airbnb, and some of these are at a moderate tariff. We chose one in Hafnarfjörður, a town South of Reykjavik and close enough to function as a suburb. We had the address and marked it on the Ulmon “magic map”. Our host had confirmed that the Flybus from the airport would deliver us there.
The airport information desk directed us to the cheapest of the competing bus companies, and the girl who sold us our expensive tickets told us to get off at the Viking Hotel, and made sure the driver knew to stop there, too. We were delivered to the right place. So far so good.
The walk to our Airbnb with maximum luggage was not easy. Iceland claims to have quite a mild climate for such a Northerly location, but this March they were having another dose of winter. The pavement along the main road was clear of snow, but some parts were very uneven. The residential road had an inch or so of snow and was uphill. The wheels on our big bags did not cope very well.
We found the right address easily enough, but no-one answered the bell. We rang again. We knocked. It was clear that no-one was home. There had been no mention of a 'self check-in' so what to do? It was late afternoon, so our host would probablybe home in an hour or so. We had some shelter from the occasional snow flurries, but it was cold standing around. It was Eve who observed that a metal ornamental dolphin had a detachable back. Inside was a key ring with two keys. One fitted the front door so we went inside to a warm house.
By locating the router and reading the label on the back we accessed the wi-fi and sent a message to our host. Apparently the keys were for us, and the second one was for our bedroom. Thank goodness we had broken into the right house!
We took no pictures of the house we stayed in. But we did take some of Hafnarfjörður from our bedroom window.
The non-commercial side of the harbour, with some blocks of flats.
Closer to our base. The green roof belongs, of course, to a church. Iceland must be the only country in the world that has adopted Christianity by a democratic vote.
Internet research located some cheapish dining options in Hafnarfjörður. Subway would not have felt like dinner, so we chose a Thai restaurant. The young woman who served us spoke excellent English, as did every Icelander we encountered.
For our first full day we did the classic tour, variously described as the “Golden Triangle” or “Golden Circle”. There were three key destinations:
1. ÞingvellirNational Park (pronounced "THING-vet-lihr"), where the split between the American and European continental plates is clearly seen. Because Iceland straddles this divide there is a lot of geothermal activity. Hot water is taken from the ground and pumped to Reykjavik, where it is piped directly to peoples bathrooms. Our shower had the faintly sulphurous smell of geothermal water.
Standing on America and looking at Europe.
On the edge of this rift valley the effects of upwelling, splitting rocks is clearly seen.
A path through the fissure. At one time vehicles could be driven through here, but the shifting rock was liable to open up holes in the road without notice.
2. Strokkur. Once upon a time there was a hot water spout in Iceland called Geysir. It was so famous that people travelled to Iceland to see it, even though it erupted sometimes only once in a week. Geysir is now dormant, but Strokkur puffs water and steam into the air every 7 or 8 minutes. One 'chuff' is all you get, though. We are used to New Zealand's geysers, which spout a column of water into the air for minutes at a time. Bill was so incensed that he almost asked for his money back. ;-)
Strokkur's performance.
A nearby pool of hot water.
Pronunciation trivia. The English word 'geyser' is pronounced guy-zuh in New Zealand and gee-zuh in England. The Icelanders, who seem to have invented the word, say gay-zeer. (All 'g's are hard, as in gorge, not soft as in George.)
3. Gullfoss. The tour guide gave this waterfall a big build up, even comparing it to Niagara. The height is nowhere near any of the big, famous waterfalls (Niagara, Iguacu and Victoria), but it is certainly an impressive sight with a lot of water flowing over the edge. And on the day we were there the image was enhanced by cliffs of icicles and other swirls of ice on the rocks.
The main fall.
Ice on the rocks.
A close up of one of the cascades.
Iceland has developed its own, distinctive, horses over the last few hundred years. They are not dissimilar to England's moorland ponies in appearance, but have extra 'gaits'. The horses we know can walk, trot, canter and gallop. Icelandic horses can also amble and pace (or flying pace). The ones we saw were all demonstrating the stand-and-wait-around gait.
A Dutch couple on the tour were looking forward to the Northern Lights tour that evening. Alas, the guide announced that conditions were so unfavourable that the tour would not run. Nor would it run on the morrow because a drivers' strike had cancelled all tours.
A bus drivers' strike could have an impact on us as well, because we aimed to go into Reykjavik. Bill spent a good deal of the evening hunting up details of the strike in English. It was complicated by multiple unions taking quite different forms of action on different days. The city bus drivers mostly belonged to the union that was taking industrial action by stopping the bus for 5 minutes at 4pm, so we seemed to be OK. In the morning we peered out of the window and were heartened by the sight of yellow buses running along the main road.
Our aim was to obtain a Reykjavík City Card, which would allow us to use the city buses and admit us to most of the museums. We had to pay cash for the first ride into the city, but we successfully exited at the right stop and walked to the Information Centre at City Hall. Perversely, we could not buy a city card there. If we had purchased one online the charming young lady could issue the plastic card, but the system would not allow her to take money! But there was wi-fi, so we went online and … the site told us city passes were “no inventory available” or some such nonsense. Finally we had to walk to another issuer of city cards that couldaccept our money.
Local wildlife at City Hall. The ducks are Mallards, the commonest duck in the world. The swans are probably Whooper Swans.
We spent the rest of the day steeping ourselves in Icelandic history, and being educated about the Northern Lights. They can be seen at any time of the year, and sometimes even in daylight, but the best chances are in the winter on a clear night with lots of solar flares going on. March is OK, but there was little solar activity at the time and a lot of cloud, so there was no point in getting up in the night and looking out of the window.
A dining guide at the Airbnb had awarded a prize for “Best Cheap Eats” to a cafe in the centre, Icelandic Street Food.
The important part of the menu.
We had the Kr 1690 option, soup + bread. The pictogram for the Kr 1990 choice means that your soup is served in a hollowed out loaf of bread, so you can eat the bowl. Amazingly, the soups come with free refills. We tried both the lamb and the shellfish and they were excellent.
Kr 1000 is approximately NZ$12.40 (GBP 6.35; CAD 11.00; USD 8.20).
Fishing has been a very important part of the Icelandic economy for a long time. There is a museum that deals with nothing else. This is a display of “stockfish”, i.e. dried fish, which was the major export until fish could be transported frozen.
The weather was not pleasant that day. Although there were some fine periods, there were also some bitterly cold winds driving stinging snow into our faces.
Rather than eat Thai food for a third night, we returned to Icelandic Street Food for an early dinner. We had to take our fisherman's fave to the bar 2 doors along the street to be able to sit down because the cafe is so popular. Unfortunately this tempted us to buy drinks. Two small beers cost us about NZ$27.
Day 3: We had a few of our 24 hours hours left on the city card, so we left our luggage at the Airbnb and took the bus to the National Museum. It was well presented, but we were museumed out, and not sorry when we had to go back and collect our bags. During our stay we had discovered that there is a city bus route that goes to the airport. It accepts credit cards, picks up at the bus station in Hafnarfjörður and is a fraction of the price of the Flybus. It's not very frequent, but there was one that suited our timetable.
The luggage gave no trouble on the way to the bus station. It is outside a mall, where we purchased coffee and sandwiches, and extra sandwiches to take on the 'plane.
Local architecture, photographed on the way to the airport.
