West Iceland

We boarded our much anticipated boat cruise to see Icelandic bird life at the seaside town of Stiksholmer. It was a perfect day for a cruise - warm and sunny and the scenery in Breiðafjörður Bay was enchanting.  We also got to savour the fruits of the sea while on the boat - fresh scallops and sea urchins were taken straight from the sea and onto our shell plates. They were delicious even though the salt water that came with them could still be tasted. The next post will be dedicated exclusively to the wildlife encountered on the cruise.

After lunch in Stiksholmer, the fog has rolled in and our drive through the Snaefellsness Peninsula was disappointing because we couldn't see too much.  The famous Kirkjüfell Mountain, that was on many an iconic photo of Iceland, was half obscured by fog. So I didn't bother making the trek to the waterfall in the drizzle to attempt to take that iconic photo. I did take photos of the mountain and the waterfall separately - maybe I can do a collage...;-)

Those are the breaks when travelling on a schedule. It is not the first time that we didn't see what we hoped to see on a trip - life is not perfect afterall. But there are a lot more to a trip than one missed view.  We also had many glimpses of a large glacier while on the road, sometimes on the left side of the road, sometimes on the right side depending on which way the road turns. Photographers were trying to take pictures of it from the bus window. The irony of it is that when we got back to the hotel, we looked across the road, and there was the Langjökull Glacier in full view!

We had spent the night in the small town of Bifrost at a hotel that used to be part of the University of Bifrost. The rooms here are housekeeping rooms with a kitchenette - not that we needed to use it as our dinners were included.  As it turned out the buffet dinner was superb, with an executive chef supervising the buffet to ensure the everything is fresh and hot, almost like a served dinner. The cured salmon was the highlight for me as were the fresh salmon and cod served with pine nuts and herbs.

The hotel was just beside the married quarters of the University which seemed to be built on a lava field. The backyards of these townhouses and apartments, including the children's playground consisted of lava rocks! The following day, we hiked up the crater that was beside the hotel and saw that there were two craters in the area. So we had slept beside a volcano...  I subsequently found out that was the Grabrok crater, an old crater that erupted 3400 years ago.

Dímonarklakkar Islands seen on the boat cruise - the captain told a tall tale of trolls keeled over in the water resulting in these two islands...;-)

The bird rock where all kinds of seabirds were nesting

  

Our boat

Catch of the day

Scallop

Scallop roe

Sea urchin

The port of Stiksholmer

   

Houses in Stiksholmer

The local church before they built on the Klingon Church below

 

Our guide Kari sang for us in the church

The iconic view of the Kirkjufell mountain and falls

My view of Kirkjüfell

Kirkjüfell falls

 

 Langjökull Glacier seen from the bus

The scenic drive through the Snaefellsness Peninsula - the fog came and went

 Langjökull Glacier as seen from the hotel

The backyard of the university residences

Crater Grabrok

The crater as seen from the top

View from the rim of crater

Leaving Bifrost in the morning

Iceland - the Golden Circle

The Golden Circle, consisting of the hot springs at Geysir, the tumultous multi-tiered Gullfoss and the relatively staid Þingvellir National Park with its rift valley, was the most visited area in Iceland. We headed straight for Geysir after we joined the tour group as it is quite close to Reykjavik.  

Geysir has the one big geyser and other smaller ones but everyone who visited just hung around the big one as it is the most spectacular. What is so great about this geyser is you don't have to wait long for it to perform - every 5 minutes or so, it would shoot up a stream into the air and if you have your camera ready, you are almost guaranteed success. You would even have time for selfies!

We were lucky to see a rainbow when we arrived at Gullfoss.  Apparently that is not unusual on a sunny day. The falls are quite spectacular, thundering down the gorge in several steps. We entered at the lower falls and hiked up a slippery wet path to the upper platform which jutted out into the falls. It is difficult to capture the falls in its entirety in one shot and still do it justice, even with a wide angle; so I have tried to recreate the feel of the powerful cascades in several images.

Þingvellir was anticlimatical after the thundering Gullfoss. You need to hike a bit to get the full impact of the rift valley which was apparently where the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates meet. It boggles the mind to imagine yourself standing on the edge of the continents (with the rest of it behind you) when you are standing on the edge of the rift valley. As we didn't hike in, my photos could only show you a distant view of the valley - not as impactful as an actual hike between the walls.  I leave that up to younger legs...

We moved on from Þingvellir to Bifrost, spending the night there in the shadow of a crater, and getting ready for a day in the Western Fjords on the Snaefellsness Peninsula.

This was one tall geyser!  It was interesting to note that after this one big one, the rest that followed were all much smaller, reaching maybe only half the height of this one.

A tiny one...

My first bird capture in Iceland - a Redwing

Gullfoss decorated with rainbow - note the people on the left, the next shot was from that platform

Looking downstream from the mid-level - a close-up shot and the one below, showing the gorge that the water flows through

Beautiful lake on the way to Thingvellir National Park

The path down to the rift valley

In between the two tectonic plates

Rift valley seen from the top with a close-up below

The landscape on the way to the Snaefellsness Peninsula

Reykjavik - the colourful capital of Iceland

This is the start of my blog posts on Iceland, which we visited on a bus tour around the ring road, starting from the Western Fjords to the northern part of the island, then the Eastern Fjords and finishing in the lava fields of South Iceland. Please join me on this journey to some of the most unique landscapes we have visited.

We arrived in Reykjavik a day before the start of our 9 day coach tour of Iceland. It gave us a chance to get a headstart on getting over the jetlag and also to do a walking tour of the city centre. It's not a very big area and we thought we had hit the highlights in an afternoon of walking. We subsequently did a brief city tour as part of the Iceland tour but that was a cursory overview and nothing like walking the city to get a feel for it.

What struck me in Reykjavik was the colourful houses on the streets, probably typical of these northern places with long bleak winters. It reminded me of St. John's, Newfoundland only more sophisticated. The waterfront was also colourful. The Harpa Concert Hall was dazzling in its complexity - I could photograph it for hours and from every angle! The Halgrimskircha was stunning architecturally yet faithful to its purpose as a place of worship - I love the airy spirituality inside. The Perlan too with its striking dome was a people place even though it's hardly accessible except by car. 

Another surprise was the excellent quality of cuisine in Reykjavik and in Iceland in general, as we discovered later. Our lunch at the Icelandic Fish and Chips, a mid-priced cafe specializing in fish, was exceptional in quality and reasonably priced. Dinner at Frir Prakkar (Three brothers), next to our airbnb apartment, was outstanding. It was a great introduction to Iceland.  Please check Food Sparks the foodblog for details.

Harpa Concert Hall, a collaboration between Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and Danish Architects Henning Larsen, has a distinctive hexagonal glass facade inspired by the basalt landscape of Iceland, which we got to see later on in the trip.

What I love about the place is how it was completely open to the public, it was a gathering place. There were no security guards at the door even at night.  You just walk into the place and make yourself at home.

The Sun Voyager sculpture, a must see for every visitor.  Here, it would have been a perfect image with a speedboat in front of it, but I was photobombed...

Colourful ships at anchor and also colourful condos at the waterfront

We walked up to the church from the waterfront, and it was a parade of colour...

This is a bakery with flaky scones...:-)

I couldn't believe I actually got a photo without people in it!  It was mid-afternoon on a Saturday and it was just non-stop traffic across this busy plaza. Ordinarily, I would have said forget it. But when I saw the pattern on the plaza, I knew I had to wait it out.  And it was worth it!

The inside had beautiful clean lines and had an airy spirituality to it.

Our airbnb apartment was just a short walk from the church - the residential area had some colourful, creative decorations

I love this one with real and painted greenery - the painted one would do in the winter!

Take a look at this creation with inlaid wood and stone!

Our apartment is on the first floor of the peach-coloured building, right next to the restaurant Frir Frakkar

City Hall and its large pond was a ten minute walk from our place. I love the sculptures outside and inside City Hall. The birds hanging out on the pond were a source of continuous entertainment, especially the aggressive seagulls.

Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat - brilliant satirical work

This one was inside - Monument to the unknown floor scrubber?

The Parliament Building, still with the Danish crown on top

The square in front of the Parliament building - note the posters on the wall

The Perlan, at the top of the hill, a Museum showcasing the wonders of Iceland. We were there just to have lunch under the beautiful dome and admire the panoramic view of Reykjavik from its observation deck - afterall we've already checked out the wonders of Iceland in person.

The spectacular dome of the Perlan

The atrium inside

the very cool sculptures outside

Finally, a memorable visit to the Blue Lagoon with its hot spa - not necessarily the most spectacular part of the Golden Circle but certainly impressive, if only for its size.