Day one
Drive to Seattle.
As usual we start the holiday by driving to Seattle and a visit to the Pacific Science Center. The crazy mirrors were a big hit this time, and the small sections on how motors work. At least that was what I enjoyed - the boys were all over the museum trying other things out: the puzzle section, butterfly house, nutrition. We got tickets for a documentary "lemurs of Madagascar" which was delightful and caused us to be dancing like lemurs for the rest of the day, Phillip especially decided that he was actually part lemur.
They spent quite a long time in the shop working out what they could afford, but finally decided that they should save their money for Iceland.
Day two.
Back to Seattle from the hotel, this time by the train. It was quite a long walk from where the train dropped us off to the science center, but it was sunny and a pleasant walk with a stop at a bakery to help us on our way. We again spent several hours at the science center, and outside climbing on a huge sculpture
We are on our way!
Day three
Iceland, again. Never in my life did I think I would be having a third trip to Iceland. It was sunny when we arrived, unlike the first time we came when it was grey and everything looked so desolate. This time the sky shimmered blue and it was much more welcoming.
Is there ever a time at an airport which is not slightly fraught? The ATM would not give us any money on any card, we thought the b+b would pick us up but they weren't there. We got a taxi to the b+b http://bbkeflavik.com/ which proved to be adjacent to the airport. Within 10 minutes we were in bed, and 20 minutes asleep. We woke about 2pm to glorious weather, which I hate to waste - sunny days are not a dime a dozen here. So I went and picked up the rental car, rousted the boys and started off on our Icelandic saga. Actually, we knew exactly where we were going, one of our favourite places: the swimming pool.
The pool, Laugardalslaug, is the largest in Iceland and is at an athletics complex. The pool area boasts a 50m lap pool, an 50m indoor pool, a leisure outdoor pool,
and numerous hot pots. The hot pots are of course my favourite part, and it's a serious business here. There is one large one that you can sit in (about 50 people), then a saucer shaped one that you recline in. Once I stayed in there for 3 hours. Our new discovery this time is that at the far end of the lap pool there are 6 more plus a steam room. The temperature of the water is displayed by each, ranging from 38C to 44C, one is jetted, and one is seawater. I spent my time hotpot hopping, mixing in the steam room, and the leisure pool to cool down. These Icelanders know how to relax! The air temperature was 7C but it was clear blue skies and people were just lying out sunbathing. In Iceland you take it when you can get it!
Interesting fact: the Iceland word for Saturday literally means pool day.
Several hours later we felt refreshed, hungry - which we fixed with a trip to a kebab restaurant - and then sleepy again. We happily trooped back to the b+ b and collapsed back to bed.
We woke up at about 2am and realized that there was a nearly full red moon. We went out to look, but even bundled up in coats, scarves, gloves the wind was just too cold for us and we went back inside.
Day 4
Golden circle and mid-hvoll cottages
We are off to explore Iceland outside of Reykjavik for the first time, in glorious sunshine. Seriously, not a cloud in the sky.
Our first stop was the sight of the ancient Icelandic parliament, http://thingvellir.is/english up in the hills, surrounded by snow clad mountains, the lake a beautiful, shimmering view. The first sight of it is some way off, but a great view. Many people stop here and build little rock towers.
It is unquestionably a beautiful location, fascinating history and a pretty good visitors centre. Unfortunately to 3 small boys, it is pretty much "who cares?" Even the fact that it sits on top of the joining of the American and European tectonic plates was lost on them (not entirely surprising).
Our next stop was a big hit with everyone, a spa, situated right on top of a hot spring and next to a large lake, it is fairly small but had everything needed. There was a long, shallow pool with different shapes in that the kids could enjoy sitting in or on or next to. For the grown ups there was a large hot pot at 40C, a pool made with rocks and containing the spring water, a waterfall to sit under, a sauna with a beautiful view over the lake and 3 steam rooms. The steam rooms were directly on top of the spring and in the first one I nearly burnt my foot as steam gushed through the slats of the floor. It also smelled of pure rotten eggs. Ahhhh. Ughhhhh.
It was fascinating watching the arctic terns on the lake flying directly into the wind and staying in position. We went and paddled in the lake, just to say we had, but didn't linger.
After several happy hours at the spa we moved onto Geyser, the one which all the other geysers in the world are named after. In less than a year we have visited the 2 most famous water spouts in the world: Old Faithful and Geyser. It erupts about every 10 minutes. Interestingly it is not Geyser which erupts anymore, it is about 30m away, as Geyser has stopped erupting. Again, the boys were unimpressed as they had seen so many at Yellowstone last year.
The next stop on the Golden Circle was Gulfoss, an enormous waterfall, very beautiful and picturesque, but cold with the wind whistling down.
After this we set off on a longish drive to our cabin for the next two nights. It is situated in a beautiful location on the south coast, to one side black sand beach, to the other side a glacier capped volcano, in fact the volcano that erupted 4 years ago and caused all the flight chaos in Europe. Happily, right now it is sleeping peacefully and beautifully.
It is a tiny, but well designed cabin, we suspect came as a kit from IKEA.
Day 5
A late start today as I had got sick in the night and spent a large part of it vomiting. By about 11am I felt fine and off we went. The first part of the journey was hilly, through the town of Vik, and very beautiful. Then the are got very flat. There is a lot of run off here from the glaciers on the mountains and volcanoes, and can become a torrent. There is one point you can stop and see some twisted hunks of metal that started life as a bridge on the road. Clearly this road gets washed away from time to time and has to be rebuilt. As it is the only road to this part of the country it is fairly essential to repair it promptly.
Our destination was jorkesdgsdg. It is a lagoon left from a retreating glacier, filled with icebergs 1000 years old. We went on a boat ride around the lagoon, and fell in love with this place. There was a guide on the boat who explained the geology of the area, and he broke off a chunk of ice for us to try in a drink of the local fire water (disgusting!). We went snap happy, taking loads of photos, which we are thrilled with - they are very photogenic.
Day 6
We left the cottage and started the day by visiting a local beach. It is black sand and pebbles, huge black cliffs full of nesting birds, an arch in the rocks which apparently is a favourite place for Hollywood films, and today beautiful blue skies and a deep blue ocean. It was beautiful. We spent a couple of hours throwing pebbles into the sea, climbing rocks, exploring caves, building rock towers and rock people, and generally having a wonderful time.
The road back to Reykjavik along the south coast is overflowing with waterfalls. We stopped at one called Skogafoss,i one of the tallest at 60m. As we were there on a sunny day there was a rainbow framing it. Living in Oregon I am used to spectacular waterfalls, but still managed to be impressed by this one.
Driving further on the road we saw so many more that we stopped counting when we could see 7 huge ones at one time.
When we got back to Reykjavik we went back to our favourite pool for some more heat therapy, rounded off the day by strolling around the city and having dinner then back to the hotel near the airport and to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment