Sunday 29 November 2009: Last Day in Iceland

We awoke to thick snow this morning and a windy, cold blizzard outside. We took the free hotel shuttle bus into Reykjavik at 09.30 after another hearty breakfast and it was still dark as we ventured out into the snowy deserted streets of the city. Well if I lived here and it was this dark and cold on a Sunday morning I would still be in bed too!
We walked up towards the Lutheran Church (Hallegrimskirkja Church), which sits on higher ground in the middle of the old town and has a bell tower that is the highest point in the city. The Christmas lights were still on in the streets and everywhere looked so pretty (see photo). The Church is modern and quite plain inside but still really beautiful. It was built during the last century and in 1992 a church organ with 5275 pipes and 72 stops was inaugurated. It is a magnificent organ and we were lucky enough to be there when the organist (Hordur Askelsson) was practicing for the service later that morning. The tone was so rich and crisp; we couldn’t help but sit and listen for a while.
Then we paid a small fee and took the elevator up into the bell tower where we had unrivalled views out across the city. It was bitterly cold up there but the views were well worth the pain! After leaving the church we went in search of a hot coffee to warm us and we stopped at Café Paris in the centre of town. Before leaving to head back to the hotel and the airport we walked to The National Museum of Iceland to find out a little about the island’s history. A very modern, well planned out museum, we only had an hour to spend there so we were grateful that it wasn’t too big! The one thing I learnt from the visit was that Iceland is an ancient, peace loving community that has slowly and diplomatically won it’s independence from the rule of Denmark without any major skirmishes. It has been a hard existence making a living in the barren, remote lands here but they have endured and won. It is certainly a very welcoming and accommodating place to visit and I feel sure we will be back at some stage –maybe in the summer next time.

Saturday 28 November 2009: Day Two in Iceland

We awoke to another snowy (dark) morning in Reykjavik. Today we had a full day’s excursion planned called “The Golden Circle” tour, which took us to 4 key places on the tourist route. The first was a power plant! Usually a power plant would not be a tourist attraction but here in Iceland the hot water and heating system are powered by the earth’s natural resources as the country lies across 2 tectonic plates and can therefore use bore holes to access the extreme heat from the earths core. Well that’s enough of the science!
We drove for another hour to reach our next stop, which was the awesome natural spectacle of the Gull Foss waterfall. The terrain here is very barren, there are few houses, very few trees (because of the weak soil structure and strong winds) and no wildlife to speak of either although that is probably due to the fact it is winter-time, there is hardly any daylight and it is cold. It is so quiet.
After Gull Foss we had a short drive over to see “Geysir”, in fact THE Geysir that gave all the others around the world their name. There was ice on the ground and yet around us there were bubbling, boiling pools of water and the biggest of these was GEYSIR. Every 5 minutes Geysir blew gallons of boiling hot steam and water about 50 feet into the air –he was magnificent! For lunch we went to a restaurant across the road from Geysir that was offering a “eat as much as want” buffet. The food was excellent. I ate Cauliflower soup for the first time, which impressed Saboohi, and we had an array of raw fish, meats, breads, sweets etc. Etc it was all delicious.
Our final stop as we drove back towards Reykjavik was called Pingvellir . This is a historic site, which has been the cradle of civilisation in Iceland since about 900 A.D. It is the place where tribes would meet to discuss and agree the laws of the land – believed to be the site of the world’s first Parliament. It is also a place where the 2 tectonic plates meet and movement over the years has left gorges carved into the landscape. It is dramatic, stark, motionless and beautiful.
Another memorable day!

Friday 27 November 2009: Weekend Trip to Iceland

Our first day in Iceland and we awoke at 9.00 a.m. to a light dusting of snow and no sunlight! We arrived early this morning (2.00 am) having taken the 20.35 flight on Icelandair from Heathrow, so we didn’t get much sleep. We didn’t want to waste anytime however during this short break. We had no idea when the sun was going to put in an appearance and we had heard that Iceland can have as few as 4 hours of daylight per day in the Winter. Over a hearty breakfast we guessed what time the sun would show its face, while outside the snow started to fall harder and harder.
We caught a coach to The Blue Lagoon at 10.30 which thankfully coincided with the arrival of a lazy looking sun! The Blue Lagoon is a naturally heated geothermal spa that sits in the middle of a rugged, barren and black volcanic landscape just to the east of Reykjavik. We planned to spend the day relaxing in the hot therapeutic waters of the lagoon. It was a good decision. Surely there is nowhere else on earth quite like The Blue Lagoon? The temperature today was -3 degrees and yet out we went in our bathing costumes and (thankfully) bathrobes to swim in the waters. Once in the pale blue milky waters we were beautifully warm. The water originates from 6500 ft below the ground where the temperature is 240 degrees centigrade but thankfully the salty seawater is only about 37 degrees by the time it arrives in the Lagoon.
Around the large natural lagoon there are steam rooms, saunas and a waterfall that provides invigorating massages to those that are brave enough to stand underneath it. Naturally we tried them all out. Also around the lagoon there are tubs of white silica mud that we freely applied to our faces and skin throughout our stay. I was worried that we would find it hard to spend 6 hours here but the time flew by and once in the water we didn’t want to get out.
At 16.00, as the exhausted Icelandic sun was ready to turn in for the night after a hard 6 hours shift, we commenced a one hour massage in the outdoor spa. We floated on a blue bed in the salty warm waters with a blanket over us to keep us warm while a male masseur pummelled, prodded and stretched my tense and painful muscles. But I knew that there would be no gain without a little pain and I certainly felt wonderful afterwards. It presented such a mixture of different sensations, the warmth of the waters, the chill of the wind, the icy tingling of the snow falling on our faces and the pain and ecstasy of the massage itself.
This evening we caught the Hotel shuttle bus into Reykjavik city centre and had a very nice super in a cafe/restaurant called Solon. There are Christmas lights everywhere in town and at night it looks particularly beautiful. The architecture here in Iceland is very simple, boxy and modern. They use a lot of concrete, wood and corrugated iron it seems. In the town centre tonight it was nice to see some older wooden buildings that had much more character and gave the area a real “quaint” feel. A great first day.