Well, everyone is asking why Iceland? I say.."beacuse it is there." Actually Iceland has been on my bucket list for many years. Finally the stars aligned and we made it.
We left Sarasota and headed to Boston via Atlanta. The airport at SRQ was wonderful, quick, no lines, easy access and parking. Of course at ATL, we landed at Concourse A and had to shuttle to like E. Not a real problem, we had plenty of time, and the have the transit system to take you there. Once in BOS, we had to take the bus to the oter terminal, but it was not a problem either. Sophie had been expecting a trip to Las Vegas. I had already purchased Iceland, but did not want to tell her, (she prefers the surprise aspect of it.) I aksed her where she wanted to go, she said she would like to see snow, so she wanted to go to Vegas. When I told her there would most likely not be much snow in Vegas, and we could probably see some at the Grand Canyon, she was ok with that.
Since she is a well seasoned traveler, she did take note at BOS when we changed terminals. We had to go to "E" since that is the International Terminal. Why are we going to E? Vegas is in the US, yes? These airlines fly to Vegas? OK, so I realized I could not pull it off much longer. We where heading up the elevator to check-in the bags, and I had to tell her. I said "I have very bad news for you... we are not going to Vegas." "Why, where are we going?" "Iceland" I replied. "Hummmm, they have snow there?" "Yes" I say. Sophie replies, than it is ok" Than the questions strated coming, what, where, how, why....
I explained to her that I had this planned all along, and that we had a nice apartment in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. We will be going whale watching, Galcier walking, 2 tours, and seeing the Northern Lights. By than, everything was ok. Just millions of quesitons floating in her head.
Here is some of what we saw and did... the country was amazing. The colors, the contrast. The people where all so nice. I had booked 2 tours, they turned out fabulous.
Since we arrived so early, our room was not quite ready yet. I had booked a whale watching tour for that afternoon, but since it was super windy about 30mph, the tour was cancelled and rescheduled for Thrusday. In the mean time, we walked around the city, unfrotunatley it was Sunday morning, so many things did not open until later, or not at all. We did find a nice little cafe which was serving
breakfast, and coffee, and it was nice and warm in there too. So we took shelter for about an hour or
so any longer and we began to nod off. So we hit the pavement again, and here are a few pics from
that first morning. Oh yes, in the winter (January) when we were there, the sun does not rise until about 10am or so, so these are just a bit darker, but it was about 9am.
The above picture is another main road, it leads to the Hallgrímskirkja which would have been behind me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallgr%C3%ADmskirkja
T
66 North is a local clothing store. 66 degrees is the latitude of Iceland. Reykjavik is located at 64 degrees, making it the Northern most capital of any country.
The houses are so cute. Each so different, so much color and charm.
Hallgrímskirkja (Luthern Church) and the Icelandic flag. It was cold and blustry out, but it was so much fun.
Hallgrímskirkja, taking in the whole Church. We did climb (elevator) up to the top, just ablove the clock. But this was still quite early, and it was time for Sunday services.
On monday we headed for our first tour. I had booked all our tours with Bustravel Iceland. http://www.bustravel.is/ They where again wonderful. Kalli our driver picked us up right at the front door. We where scheduled for a 8am pickup and he was there at 8:05. I was apprehensive since all the arrangements had been made ahead of time, no phone calls where placed. They just knew were we where,and showed up to pick us up. The 2 reasons I picked Bustravel Iceland. #1. Family owned business. #2. They used small buses (14 seat vans) instead of the large coaches which we encountered along our travels. Kalli our driver was great. He was funny, patient, kind and always there with a helping hand. And answered the questions, all the questions of a curious 10yo.
This picture was taken at our first stop on the "Southern Iceland Tour" It is at Skogafoss, it was miserable out, raining, windy and cold. But as they say in Iceland, "Don't like the weather, wait 5 mins" We did encounter some nice sunshine later in the day.
From there, we loaded back up on the bus and headed to Vik. One of my favorite locations in Iceland. We had lunch there, next to the little restaurant, was also a wool factory. The wool sweaters they made are beautiful, but I did hold back, realizing, not the most practial thing to bring back from Iceland.
Sophie on the rocks at the Vik beach. Just after the ice storm.
Ok... my other favorite... ok, ok, so I guess I cannot really pick a favorite place. (Vik) since it was all so amazingly beautiful. I think what I loved best was the contrast. The colors... The fire....The ice.
Our faithful guide Kalli, took us to our next stop...The Glacier Solheimajokull. It is near the volcano which erupted in 2010, Eyjafjallajökull.
Sophie with her new BFF Kalli
After the Glacier, we headed to our last stop of the day... Seljalandsfoss. An amazing waterfall that you actually walk behind. The climb was a bit scary, but quite do-able even for Sophie. Here are a few pictures from there....
One of my favorite pictures I took. This is another waterfall next to Selljalandsfoss. It was just breath-taking. Note the moon over the falls.
Bill and Sophie behind the waterfall.
My dear sweet beauty.
One of my favorite pictures I took. This is another waterfall next to Selljalandsfoss. It was just breath-taking. Note the moon over the falls.
After the waterfall, we headed back to Reykjavik, for a well deserved dinner and an even better desered nights sleep.
Tuesday was our free day again... It was time to actually explore Reykjavik we went back to the Hallgrímskirkja and climbed up to the top, well actually we took the elevator, and only had one set of stairs to go up. The price was very minimal, and well worth it to see the amazing views of this beautiful city. It front of the Church is this statue of Leif Ericsson, it states "Son of Iceland, founder of the Americas" Recalling back to history lessons from days gone by, so ture.
This is one of my favorite houses we came across. I call the "Lemon house, witht he Lime Roof" I assume since the weather is a bit drab, color is introduced when ever and where ever possible.
Here Sophis is having fun releasing some extra energy, since all that walking was not enough. Note the Mts. behind her and myself. Yes, it was cold, and I only removed my hat for the photo op.
After walking the city, taking lots and lots of pics, we headed back to the hotel/apt. Now this place did not actually have an attendant there all the time. They had a phone to call and they would show up in less than 5 mins. But as we returned, one of the guys was there, asked us about our day, what we saw, where we went etc. He asked if we had been on the Northern Lights tour yet, we said no, but it was on our list. He mentioned that he was looking at the weather report and the chances looked good. He asked if we where interested, and we jumped at the opportunity. He right away, called the company and they said they would be there to pick us up at 7:30, drop us at the main bus station, and the tour left at 8pm. We had a quick dinner, put on some warmer clothes and headed back to the front lobby. The bus/van pickup showed at exactly 7:30pm. Dropped us at the main bus station, we got our tickets, and headed to the "Coach" buses waiting. this evening there where only 2 lg buses going out. (From this company) I am not sure where they took us, since of course it was dark out, it started getting dark about 5 or 5:30pm. They explained how to set the cameras, but of course Bill already had them set before we left the apartment. Here is a night shot, yes these are both taken at night. We parked along the river for a little and than we headed to Thingvellir National Park...the only reason I know that, since we stopped there a few days later on another tour.
Sophie was thrilled to see that once again, Kalli was going to be our driver. She had hoped it was going to be him.... Our first stop was Faxi Falls. It was one of the smaller falls we had seen, but it was just beautiful, the sun was just starting to rise, and again, the colors of this photo, do not give it justice.
Next stop after Faxi, was the Crater. It is an extinct volcano, full of water. Most of it was frozen over.
After the crater, we headed to Gullfoss aka Golden Falls. WOW.... first off, it was so cold, being out in the middle of the plains, no wind barriers. The edges of the falls, where the water sprayed up, was covered in iced. Parts of the walkways where roped off, since the spray reached the walkways, covering them in ice also.
The mountain and the horses were the views we saw if we turned from the falls. There was a rather large gift shop/restaurant area where they sold souviners and such. 
Bear Bear, Kitty and Mr. Moose at Gullfoss.
Not far from Gullfoss is the Geysir area, it was about a 10 minute drive to here. Kalli explained the area to us, and then we where let go to explore and have lunch. There is also 2 restaurants and a huge shop at the Geysir. This was the first view we saw as we left the parking lot and looked towards the Geysir area.
The area smelled of sulfur, but was not bad. Here is just a bit of bubbling of one of the Geysirs.
Our little photographer getting her shot in.... the picture she was taking is right below, yes, a 10 year old took that. The girl does have quite the eye
Got a lucky shot of the Geysir going off. There are a few that "blow" it is about a 7-10 minute wait in between them. Patience is needed, even in the freezing cold.
Huge chunks of ice where just every where, it is a bit of a novelity for us, but most of the others did not seems phased by it.
This little Church and cluster of buildings is also located in Thingvellir.
One of the few photos of my hubby... love the hat sweetie...
This is the same place we where at the previous night, looking for the Northern Lights. It did not dawn on me almost unitl we left, I recognized the building selling hot choclate and coffee. These shots where taken during the day, but note that the moon is up over the building. It is the same picture, I just did one in color one in b/w.
On the other side of the little house, was this view. The first is the original, the second I did up in b/w, and the 3rd.... just a bit of tweeking.
We left Thingvellir, well sort of, it is all a large park, not really seperated by anything.. From there we headed to the "Rift Valley" so named for the Continental Rift running through it. Here is the plate that divides North America on the Left, from Europe on the Right.
There is another park at the Rift Valley, again, more chunks of ice.. here is Sophie with one.
One of the guys on our tour, Yoshi became friends with Sophie, they where playing around, and having a bit of a snowball/ice fight. Yoshi came across this piece of ice, that was shaped just like the country of Iceland. Cool. (Literally)
As we arrived to the Rift Valley Park area, we saw some of the buses from our Northern Lights tour the night before. I talked with one of the drivers, and he said they where indeed heading out again tonight. I explained we had been last night, and did not see anything, he made a phone call, and everything was arranged for another 7:30 pickup. This time they actually had 3 buses heading out. We arrived at this place next to what I beleive was called Troll Falls, that is what the sign said. We got our cameras ready, and took these few night shots. From here, we headed up over the side of the hill that faced east. It was nice being on the other side of the hill, since we got down low, found some little gullys to lay in and setup the cameras. And we waited....
We made it back to our hotel about midnight again... it was time for a little sleeping in. We had originally scheduled our whale watching tour for the day of our arrival, Sunday, but due to weather conditions, it had been rescheduled for Thursday at 1:00pm. That gave the morning free, with plans already for dinner. The weather was still quite rough out, so they said the tour would be leaving by bus, heading to the Harbor at the next town over, and that is where we could catch the boat. It was not a problem, everthing was right there, the bus was waiting, dropped us at the Harbor one town over and the boat was right there too.
A few from the other Harbor...
Another picture of the Harbor from where the boat left.
A view of the town from the boat.
When we arrived back to Reykjavik, the bus dropped us at the Harbor there, here is a picture of an old boat being worked on in dry dock.
The military boat was from I believe Norway or Denmark. Again...note the "C" word.
Sophie shopping the "Viking Way" at the local gift shop.
After the whale watching tour, I had planned on having dinner at a little hole in the wall called the Sea Barron. This picture is the original "Barron". The girls at the restaurant said he was still alive in his 80's and doing quite well for a man who had such a hard life. The restaurant was really good.. but when I say hole in the wall, that is about it. The "Menu" is a cooler off the left (as you enter) full of kabobs of different types of seafood. Pick what you like, they grill it. They had some fantastic Lobster Soup, full of chunks of lobster. Sophie had shrimp, I had some scallops, and yes, wait for it..save the strangest for last.. Hubby had whale. Yes, whale. First off, the whale watching tour told us that they only a certain number of whales to be caught every year. In fact in 2012, they did not allow any so what he has was from 2011. That year, they allowed only 31 to be caught. If they did not do this, there would be an over-abundance of them, eating all the fish that the fisherman catch. After this is noted...the whale was not to my liking. It looked just like a nice cut of steak, nice red in color, a little marbeling. It chewed just like a nice piece of steak...but tasted like an oily fish. Enough said, lets just leave it at that....
That is how we spent our last full day in Iceland.
When I booked our tours, I booked to include the Blue Lagoon. Most people either book at the beginning or the end of their stay in Iceland, since it is on the way to the airport. We opted for the end, I figured, what better way to get in the last bit of relaxation than the spa....Ahhh I was right.
Breath-taking views of the parking lot. I have never seen a parking lot looks so beautiful.
After about 10 or 15mins, we where ready to head in....the main enterance.
What makes the water so blue you ask??? Well in the bottom of the Lagoon is silica sand, which is white, that stuff on our faces in this picture.. the sun hits it, reflects off the water, casting a blue hue. The water temp ranges from 98-102F. Ahhhhhh
Here are some of Bill's amamzing shots of the Lagoon.
**Once we got to the airport, went through security..which they did not even make us take off our coats or boots. We arrived at the international terminal. Once there, we were able to get our VAT tax back. Make sure you save all your reciepts of purchased items, looke for the VAT bank, fill out the paper and wait in line. It was not much, but I got back about $10. The food at the airport was very good, and probably the cheapest we purchased all vacation.. I guess since there is no VAT there.
It was sad to leave this amazing country. Where the weather was cold, but the people where so warm, caring, friendly and willing to help. Before we left the airport for our 5 hour trip back to Boston, hubbuy was already saying that we need to return to Iceland. I said, just tell me when, and I am on it.
