Tag: culture

There are many “must do” sights in Iceland and when we were planning our trip, visiting the golden circle, the 140 mile spectacular route was one we had to see, and didn’t we just pick the day with the weather.

But nothing was going stop Amanda and I making the most of every single minute, including shrieks of amazement when our tour bus was leaving the industrial harbour and I saw a Firecrest painted on the side of unit.

Luckily the perceived wisdom about the weather in Iceland is to “hang about 10 minutes and it will have changed completely”. So as our tour bus arrived at one of the magnificent waterfalls, the mist parted to reveal Gullfoss, “the golden waterfall” Of course being part of the must do tour of Iceland meant we weren’t the only ones enjoying the view.

Gullfoss  could be counted as two significant waterfalls, each worthy of a million photos

Back in the early 20th century an enterprising English man wanted to buy the waterfall from its owner, Tomas Tomasson, a sheep farmer. The plan was to use it to generate hydro-electricity. However Tomas refused to sell “his friend” but did agree to lease the land. This led to years of legal battles, because there was a loophole that Tomas hadn’t forseen. His daughter, Sigríður Tómasdóttir fought hard and sacrificed much, she frequently walked the 62 miles into Reykjavik to    After much expense and uphill struggle, to the point where she threatened to throw herself into the falls if construction started, Howell pulled out and in 1929 Gullfoss returned to the custodianship of the Icelandic people. Sigríður is recognized as Iceland’s first environmentalist

I wonder if I have a bit of Iceland in my heritage, wearing plaits.

But there’s no way I’m going to throw myself down there no matter how special it is.

We could have stayed and marvelled all day at Gullfoss, but our excussion was ready to move on. We didn’t have time to visit the Langjökull Glacier,

it was only after a closer look that we realised it was ice not cloud

We fancied something a bit warmer so it was off to visit geysers

With dire warnings not to go into the water as it was coming out of the ground between 80 and 100°C we all dutifully stood around the discreet barrier

And were rewarded with several very dramatic expulsions of water and steam as Stokkur revealed its glory

It’s little brother, appropriately named Little geyser was spluttering mud most of the time

Again as we have seen throughout our visit, despite it being height of tourist season and the number of visitors, we never really felt the crowds spoilt our own enjoyment.

We had one final location  to visit on our golden circle tour. Þingvellir, (thingvellir)This area is strangely unique as it forms both part of Iceland’s political heritage, and a significant geological feature. The newly arrived settlers gathered together at this site to decide how to live as a community. The Alþingi, general assembly was founded in 930 and continued meet until 1798, it is still revered as a national shrine.

However impressive the sense of pride the Icelanders have of their country, we were fascinated by the fact that these rock formations were actually part of the earth’s tectonic plates. On one side we were able to reach out and touch the Americas,

whereas on the other we were in no-man’s land for the eurasion plates were now some 4km away and shifting by 2.5cm a year.

Thankfully thats only 0.07mm per day and we didn’t think the ground was going to swallow us up before we got home.

We made it safely back to our ship in time for an early evening departure from Iceland. As we said our farewells we cruised past the Imagine Peace Tower, the right hand small white structure on Viðey Island. It is a memorial and symbol of international peace, erected by Yoko Ono in 2007,

on significant dates it is lit with 15 searchlights and prisms that appear to create a tower of light reaching 4000m into the sky