Lisa
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Eastern Fjords
Our day driving in the Eastern Fjords was a sunny, scenic, relaxing day of rest from the walking we did to see the sites of the southern side of Iceland. Route 1 follows along the fjords, in and out so that makes for a long but very pretty drive. Pyramidal-shaped mountains were along this route.…
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Thingvellir National Park
This was our very first National Park to see in Iceland. I used an anglicized spelling; Icelandic spelling uses the 30th letter of their alphabet which looks like a capital P with the bump in the middle instead of the top. Vellir means meadows. This park has the site of the original government gathering place…
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South Beaches (strond) and Sea Stacks (drangur)
On our first day with the car, we visited the Black Sand Dunes after lunch in Porlakshofn. These are accessible on a dirt road that the RAV4 handled just fine, but the people in the class C camper behind us didn’t take it all the way to the dunes. The road was soft sand and…
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Turf Farms and Man-made Caves
July 3rd – Rutshellir are man-made caves right along Route 1. These were used for hay storage and probably had a smithy as it was next to a historical travel route. Over 90 farms in the south of Iceland have caves like these with wood and sod fronts extending out from the rock formation. Caves…
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Craters
Because we were traveling in early July when the sun never fully sets in Iceland, we found that we could easily do evening activities and go to bed late. Our first crater hike at Kerid Crater, a 6000 year old crater in the Western Volcanic Zone, was on our list for July 3rd, but we…
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Museums on Route 1
Thorbergssetur at the Hali farm in Sudursveit was a guide book recommendation for supper after visiting Diamond Beach. There was a recorded voice playing from a rock near the parking lot. Inside is a restaurant, gift shop and museum dedicated to the author Thorbergur Thordarson, the voice coming from the rock. We ordered supper, then…
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Museums in Reykjavik
On June 29th, our first day in Iceland, after eating lunch at the Cat Cafe, we walked up the rainbow road to the Hallgrimskirkja, the tallest church in Iceland, but it was closed for services. We then meandered through neighborhoods to the Pjodminjasafn Islands National Museum. We noticed metal roofs and transome windows everywhere. Tipping…
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Geothermal areas
The Blue Lagoon was our first geothermal encounter, and that national treasure gets its own page. After supper on that first day with the car, we ventured back out to the Hveradalir Geothermal Area which is a small spot near Hveragerdi with bubbling hot springs and sulfur in the air. We were the only ones…
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Glaciers (jokull) and Icebergs
On July 3rd, Solheimojokull was our first visit to a glacier with pieces of it floating in the water and heading out to sea. It was raining pretty good when we arrived, so we walked the path up to observe the glacier and took some pictures. There were kayakers in the water with the small…
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River Canyons (jugur)
The Fjadrarglijufur River Canyon is a nice stop between Vik and Hofn with a lower and upper parking lot. We parked in the lower one, then hiked along the rim to see this one-kilometer long narrow canyon that is 100 meters deep and quite beautiful. The river has that blue-glacier color. We stopped at a…