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We were picked up, as promised, by the transportation company at 7 AM for transfer to the Reykjavik airport. We both had a flight departure at 10:30. Mine is a non-stop to Seattle, slated for 7.75 hours ( we fight head winds traveling westward). Unfortunately Scott has to fly to Copenhagen, then to Shanghai and finally home to Auckland. He will arrive home at 6AM Saturday morning (11PM Friday night, Seattle time). Numbers like that really give you a feeling of how big this planet of ours really is.

We grabbed a cup of coffee at the airport, said our farewells and went our separate ways, both hoping we could do another father/son trip someday.

I left on time on a plane with some empty seats- a rarity these days. I even had an empty seat next to me! Spent most the time dosing, reading the book that I had never had an opportunity to even open during the trip. I arrived home on time.

Some of my impressions of Iceland.

• Iceland is a wild country: active volcanoes, glaciers, wind. It is visually beautiful but in its own unique way. It is treeless, and simply desolate in places. I was told astronauts once trained here for their trip to the moon. It is not a place for wimpy people.
• It is a much larger land mass than I had expected. Driving 37 hours and covering 1500+ miles during the last eight days proved that to us.
• I was surprised that everyone we met spoke English. Thank goodness as the Icelandic language is not an easy one to learn. All the older people told us they learned English by watching TV. The lady at the reception desk today said she learned hers watching I Love Lucy reruns.
• Iceland is not a place for lovers of warm weather. It never gets warm here. The thermometer never got above 55 degrees during our stay. People joke that if you do not like the weather it is likely to change in 5 minutes. I can attest to that- sunny and blue sky one minute; clouds and rain showers a short time later.
• Iceland is clean. I saw no evidence of discarded trash anywhere in the city or countryside.
• The architecture of the homes and buildings is pretty bland, probably influenced by its historical link to Scandinavian countries.
• The food was excellent, albeit expensive. A dinner salad or appetizers ran $20; entrees were $40-$60; drinks were $15-$25; desserts were $15-$20. The specialties of the island are lamb and fish. For the adventuresome traveler some menus offered puffin, minke whale, horse and fermented shark- we passed on all of them. All the breads were to die for. There is even a bread called “geysir bread” which is cooked underground by geothermal heat. The Iceland version of yogurt, called “Skyr”, is excellent. It reminds me of a Greek yogurt.
• I overheard a conversation that the minimum wage in Iceland is $4500/month, which might explain the high costs of the food and goods.
• Most of the young service staff in hotels and restaurants are from European countries. We met kids from Estonia, Poland, Croatia and Romania. It is easy to get a work visa there so that is why they come. The country simply does not have enough people to fill its needs.
• Tourism is growing by leaps and bounds. They expect 1.5-2 million visitors this year. Ten years ago it was 10 percent of that. Iceland is the new “place to go” for travelers. The country does have a great system in place to deal with visitors. The self drive tour we were onworked flawlessly, from being met at and returned to the airport, to the car rental, to the one night stays at pre-arranged hotels, to the travel material available to visitors. All the brochures and attractions had descriptions in both Icelandic and English language. Likewise for displays in the museums. Roads are well-marked. Our rental car had GPS and I believe all cars do. There is free internet almost everywhere, even in the most isolated parts of the country we travelled through.

Should you go to Iceland? No, not if you are looking for warm sandy beaches to lounge on. Yes, if you love nature and the wild. It is big; it is bold. It is for those who appreciate the outdoors and what it has to offer.

After experiencing Iceland I leave you with the following quote:

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

Normally people leave the next morning after completing the Ring Road drive. We had chosen to spend one extra day to allow us time to see the sights in Reykjavik itself and to relax(?) before heading home.

Reykjavik is certainly a walking city, the major shopping and historical center not being too large. Our first stop was at the Reykjavik Settlement Center which is located where builders uncovered the ruins of a Viking longhouse that dated back to 871AD. Part of the excavation is still visible and the city fathers have built yet another very good museum around it which describes the evolution of Iceland and its people. It is well done and certainly worth a visit by anyone going to Iceland.

From there we walked to the National Museum where we saw artifacts from the early history of Iceland. Our feet and minds wore out before we got much beyond the history up to the Reformation when Iceland moved from the Catholic religion to Lutheran. A future trip would be necessary to explore Icelandic history beyond that period. Again the museum was excellent and I enjoyed it immensely.

We went back to the hotel to rest our feet (and bodies) for a while before heading out to an early dinner (Italian tonight) as Scott had purchased tickets to the evening performance of “Icelandic Sagas-The Greatest Hits- in 75 Minutes”, a two actor comedy presented in Reykjavik’s lovely modern concert hall, Harpa. It was a hoot.

Back to the hotel to finish packing as we will be picked up at 7AM for transfer to the airport.

As the trip progressed Scott made it a game to push the daily “steps” with the hopes of getting at least 10,000 steps per day average. Today we completed 18,357 steps, with 9 floors of elevation gain. That made the total for the 10 day trip of 123,758 steps with 222 floors of elevation gain. Just seeing those numbers made me proud, but tired!  Goodnight!

 

 

 

 

This is our last day on the road, as we are due back in Reykjavik this evening. The goal today is to visit two of the major tourist sights on Iceland which are part of what they call the “Golden Circle” drive, a day trip that most visitors do then visiting the island.

We bid farewell to our funky farm lodging, forgoing a chance for one more ice cream before we left. Our first stop was at the “Geysir ( pronounced gay-zeer)” hot springs area, home to two of the famous geysers in Iceland. Unfortunately the “Great Geysir” is not so great anymore. It had been active for over 10,000 years, gushing water 80 meters in the air,  but it has been mostly inactive since earthquakes in 2000. It simply languishes as a hot spring now but will probably achieve its former glory some day.

Luckily its nearby little sister, “Strokker” , is very active, spouting about every 7-8 minutes. It only reaches heights of 15-30 meters but  its frequency is enough to entertain those of us who came to see it.  We stood and watched it for quite a while, wondering if there was a “trigger” that announced its impending eruption. Scott had a rapid fire camera and proceeded to catch the action on one of the eruptions. Sure enough there is a signal – a bubble of water appears prior to the eruption, and he caught it on film.

Not too far away is the most famous waterfall in Iceland- Gulfoss (Golden Falls). A double waterfall that drops 32 m before passing through a fairly narrow canyon. It is known for its rainbows, but there were none to be seen while we were there. The waters were almost lost in the 1920s when developers wanted to dam the river. The landowners refused to sell and even though the developers managed to get the government to OK the project, his daughter walked barefooted to Reykjavik and threatened to throw herself into the falls if they allowed the project to proceed. Luckily, the developers backed off and the world can still enjoy this spectacular waterfall.

I had read in a guidebook that nearby was a reconstruction of what they thought a 10th century Viking home looked like. This I wanted to see. Unfortunately the normally manned site closed for the season the prior week. Bummer!  We did get to walk around and take some pictures of what the homestead probably looked like back then.

Also nearby was another waterfall called “Haifoss”, the 2nd highest (122m) waterfall in Iceland. The bad news was it is located 6+ km up a very bad rocky road. Fearlessly we said, let’s do it. We found the turnoff and started in the direction of the falls. The road became rougher, the travel speeds dropped to a crawl, and the rocks we had to ride over became larger.

Luckily a car from the opposite direction told us that the road gets much worse and unless you had a ton of time it was not worth the trip. However, he urged us to continue up this road for about 0.5 km to see a magnificent valley called “Gjain”. We did and saw a jaw dropping valley with several waterfalls, and a beautiful small river running through it. It was an oasis set in the middle of a landscape that was moon-like in appearance. Remember the movie “The Lost Horizon”, about a place called Shangri-la?  This could have been it.  We descended into the valley floor, took lots of photos and simply absorbed the beauty of it. It was simply breathtaking and I believe it was the prettiest place I had seen while in Iceland.

The final “suggested” stop when driving the Golden Circle is at the tourist-oriented “Blue Lagoon” which is basically a high-end hot springs spa. We passed.

We retraced our steps to Reykjavik where we dropped off our luggage at the hotel and returned the car. We had driven 2484 km (1543 miles) on our 8 day journey around the island of Iceland. We spent 37 hours behind the wheel and countless hours on our feet seeing all the sights there were to see.

We celebrated our successful trip with a beer at the local pub followed by dinner at a sushi restaurant where I ate “cooked” sushi ( i.e. chicken teriyaki)!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a local pub to watch the rest of the Iceland soccer game against Ukraine as part of the qualifying play for the next World Cup. About a dozen of the locals were watching the game;  no women were there.

Steps for the day were 14,479 with 30 floors of elevation change. Not bad for a ” late middle-aged” 76 year old!

 

We have gone as far West as the trip called for. It was now time to head south where we will visit some of the more popular and well  known Iceland sights.

The information provided by the tour company as part of the driving package includes suggested sights to see as you drive around the island. One of the highly recommended stops is at the Settlement Centre in the village of Borgarnes, which became our first stop of the day.

In two exhibitions The Settlement Centre tells the sagas of The Settlement of Iceland and Iceland´s most famous Viking and first poet, Egill Skallagrimsson. They provide you with an audio headset (available in 14 languages) to use as you walk through a series of multi-media dioramas in 30 minutes,  explaining how and when Norwegian explorers ( the Vikings) first settled Iceland. It talks about how the people established the first parliament in the world in 930 AD. It is very well done. I was impressed with the quality of the exhibit and the technology behind it.

The second exhibit covered the life of Egill Skallagrimsson(c.904-c.995). Again we were given an audio guide and walked through a series of multi-media scenes while we learned about his life and accomplishments. Egill’s Saga is one of the famous Icelandic sagas written in the 13th century.

It was lunch time by the time we finished exploring the museum and since this was the last decent sized town in the area we decided to eat at the highly rated cafe right there at the Settlement Centre. It was a good choice as they offer a soup and salad buffet( with freshly baked, warm bread) which was outstanding. The food reviewers were correct; it was worth the stop.

Continuing on we stopped at Deildartunguhver, the largest hot spring area in Europe. They collect the hot (97 degrees C) geothermal hot water, pump it up to distances of 54 km to use a heat source for homes and businesses. By the way much of Iceland’s homes and businesses are heated with geothermal energy. Nearby these hot springs are hothouses where vegetables are grown. There was a nearby roadside stand selling bags of fresh tomatoes grown in these hothouses.

We continued driving inland and stopped to see an unusual waterfall called Hraunfosser. It is a unique in that it is composed of rivulets of water seeping out of a lava field covering an area of over 900 meters along the river. It is not high; it is not massive in volume; it is simply a pretty waterfall.

We had several guide books as part of our travel gear. A reference to the Vidgelmir lava cave near where we were intrigued us. Lava flows  around 900CE created a 1.6km long cave. The roof collapsed long ago, creating an entrance to the cave. Tours that covered about 1/3 of the cave are now being offered.  Neither of us have seen or experienced such a phenomenon-walking through a cave created by the flow of lava. We agreed we should take the 1.5 hour tour. We were outfitted with hard hats and head lamps and put on warm clothes with hat/gloves as they said the temperature inside the cave was in the 30s. They have built a nice catwalk system with lighting so you do not have to scramble over rock piles, making the narrated tour easy to do. It was very interesting and worth the time/money.

Our route to that night’s lodging led us past Pingvellir National Park, the site of the parliaments held from the 10th century, where representatives met to discuss create the laws of the land. It is also the site where one can snorkel (in dry suits) in a very cold water lake and see where the actual American and European tectonic plates meet.  Scott had done this prior to my coming so we skipped it now, not that I would have been interested in diving into ice-cold water!

We had general directions ( “farm accommodation on road 36 about 8 minutes east” )to our lodging and I started to be concerned as we left the last village in the area and were headed into an unpopulated area without seeing it. Did we miss it somehow?  It was getting late and we had not had dinner. Where could we eat? We keep driving a bit further and came upon a sign pointing us up a hill to a farm. Sure enough, it was really a working farm. As we checked in we learned that the lodging had both a restaurant AND an ice cream parlor that served it own meat and dairy products. Dinner and dessert (😀) was solved!

By now Scott had me counting steps on a regular basis. He said today was a “down” day: 7776 steps, 21 floors of elevation! Personally I was content with the numbers.

 

 

 

By now you should have realized that Icelanders take great pride in creating words with as many letter as possible. I have totally given up on trying to pronounce the words!

We slept soundly to 7:30 this morning. We must have been tired. It had stopped raining but more rain is expected today.

We headed further west into the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, driving straight through until we got today’s destination, the town of Stykkisholmur (population 1195) where we were able to check into our hotel before proceeding for further exploration on the peninsula.

It was close to lunch by now and Scott wanted to stop by the grocery for some luncheon items. I happened to see a food truck across the street selling the famous Icelandic delicacy -the Icelandic hotdog. I had heard a lot about it and was told it was good so it had to be my lunch! I order the “classic” which means the beef/pork/lamb dog comes with mayo, ketchup, sweet mustard and fried shredded onions on it. I was somewhat skeptical about that combination, but “when in Rome….” I selected it as is. It was delicious!

Rain had returned by now, sometimes fairly hard, but mostly light or simply a drizzle during the whole day. We drove the entire Snaefellsnes Peninsula, stopping at locations that looked interesting. We hiked to the top of an extinct volcano (686 steps).

We walked out to rocky beaches and 2.5 km from one seaside village to another.

 

We did not get to see the primary attraction on the peninsula, the Snaefellsjokull volcano and glacier, as it was completely shrouded in clouds on this day, but we stopped at the visitor’s center to see a picture of it and learn about the area.

One of the stops we made was at a small slot canyon that I chose to not go see as it involved walking up a river into a very narrow ( less than 10 feet wide) canyon. I grabbed a power nap in the car while Scott ventured forth to see what it was all about. I have included a few photos he took on his exploration of the canyon.

We drove through grassy pasture land between tall mountains, barren lava fields and along rugged seashores with not much indication of inhabitants. This is still a sparsely inhabited country.

We returned to our hotel in Stykkisholmur in early evening and walked to another Trip Advisor recommended restaurant (Sjavarpakkhusid) a few blocks away on the harbor. Not that there are a ton of choices in these small towns. The featured seafood in this town is blue mussels “bought from local fisherman, Simon” according to the menu. I believe it. Outstanding! Scott selected the seafood stew which was equally excellent. The restaurant was small and tables were quite close and we ended up chatting with a young couple from Atlanta who were also visiting Iceland for the first time.

Back to our room in the small hotel that felt more like a home than a hotel where I worked a little on this blog before sleep overtook me, caused a lot by the 11,534 steps and 51 floors of elevation that I accumulated today.

Need to back up a couple of days to tell you about our attempt to see the northern lights. We had had several days of clear skies so Scott said he was going to wake up at 3 AM and go outside to see if the northern lights were visible. My response was “wake me if they are there; otherwise let me sleep”!  I did hear him get up, get dressed and drive away ( to get away from the lights around the hotel). That is all I recall as I fell asleep again. The next morning I asked what happened and Scott said he sat for about 20 minutes in the absolute dark but then saw some light on the horizon which he realized was probably the early sign of dawn. We came back and went to sleep. Later we learned that people did see the lights around midnight; we were simply too late. Last night was also fairly clear and the hotel we were at asked if we wanted to be wakened if northern lights appeared. Of course, was our response. The sad news is the call never came so witnessing the aurora borealis is still on my bucket list!

Back to today.  We had to hurry to Husavik, which calls itself  “the Whale Spotting Capital of the World” for our 10 AM whale watching trip off the north coast of Iceland. We have learned that driving always takes longer than you expect in Iceland.perhaps it is that distances are not far but roads are not often straight point to point.  Spotting whales here is over 95% successful as the bay is loaded with bait and whales flock here for the summer to feed.  Many different whale species appear and you never know which species might be there when you go looking for them.

We donned insulated “coveralls” before we left on a classic wooden sailing vessel called the “Gardar”.  The seas were calm and the weather cooperated by only being cloudy, but rain was specter later in the day. I am always skeptical about claims of high success rates for seeing whales. Today I was wrong as we spotted three different humpback whales on multiple surfacing during the 1+ hour we were out in the bay where they feed. I even got a pretty good shot of the whale with about half his body out of the water, something our guide said was rare for humpbacks. There was also a white-nosed porpoise sighting but I, myself, did not see it. Near the end of our 3 hour cruise,they served us hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll- a nice touch.

We grabbed a quick hot soup lunch at a local harbor restaurant and proceeded to go to the whaling museum that comes highly recommended, where we spent about 1.5 hours learning more about the different whale species and seeing many skeletons of different whales. They even have one of a blue whale, the world’s largest whale.

By the time we emerged from the whale museum it was close to 3 PM and it had begun raining. We decided we needed to start heading for our hotel for the evening. When we plugged in the coordinates to the GPS we learned we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us. Yikes, we had not counted on that and had we known we might have shortened the whale museum visit. Off we went, driving without a stop except for gas and a quick hamburger for dinner. We did get there before dark and called it a night fairly quickly.

Another bright and sunny day, which led us to do an impulsive thing. More on that later.

We are now on the northern half of Iceland, called the Highland Plateau, and we are beginning our journal westward. Our first stop today was one of the top rated waterfalls in Iceland, called Dettifoss. It is not tall (44 meters), but the volume of water flowing is the largest of all Europe. Surprisingly it is in the middle of nowhere and you would be hard put to guess its existence, until you got close enough to hear it. It is pretty spectacular, especially because there is always a rainbow near it, making for some great photo opportunities. Trivia for the day: Dettifoss was used in the 2012 movie, Prometheus.

Not too far from the falls at Namaskard Pass are an area of boiling mud pools and steam vents. There are warning signs but nowhere near the safety precautions we have in the states. You can actually walk right up to the steam vents and touch them, which I am sure, would lead to extreme burns.

A unique happening while we were viewing the mud pools was the appearance of several long distance runners, including a woman, who were competing in the Fire & Ice Ultra competition which covers 250 km over six days! The race has gotten the reputation of being the toughest race in the world. We talked to a couple of racers as they ran/walked through the mud pool area (it was part of the course).  These people are simply insane to punish their bodies that way.

Now for the impulsive activity for the day. Because the weather was so good we decided to take the one-hour sightseeing plane trip over the area we saw advertised, figuring it would give us a whole new perspective of the area. What we did not realize was that the flight would also show us the awesome destruction that volcanoes bring to an area.

The flight was in a Cessna 206 four seat airplane. The flight path took us over Lake Myvatn, nearby volcano craters, a geothermal power plant in the area the largest (over 5000 square miles) lava field in the world- all at an altitude of about 500 feet. It was quite a thrill and worth the expense. I was awed by the bleakness of the lava field, created by eruptions that began in 1961. Here, 50 plus years later, there is still nothing there except lava- no plants(not even moss), no roads, no trees- nothing but a black surface as far as the eye can see.

The size of the Askja caldera we flew over was also impressive as it covers 50 square kilometers.

Returning to “earth” we ventured to the nearby lava field where we walked a 2 km trail through the field, seeing unique lava formations, some of which have been given names.

Since we were in the area we decided to have an early dinner (we had somehow missed lunch) and chose to go to a very unique restaurant called the “Cow Shed” which was actually part of a working dairy farm. We visited the dairy barn prior to entering the Restuarant. In fact the restaurant  was literally  attached to the milking parlor and while we were eating we watched cows being milked.  Furthermore they brought us small glasses of milk “straight from the source” to taste. Surprisingly it was not as warm as I had feared. This is certainly a different sort of earing experience.

we had planned to try a nearby thermal pool but were too tired after our busy day ( 12,954 steps, 36 floor climbed) so we simply went to our hotel and called it a night.

 

 

We awoke to an overcast day which by noon had turned to bright sunshine again. We remain lucky with the weather so far; hopefully it will continue.

The east coast of Iceland is sparsely populated with very small fishing communities. There are a series of fjords along the coast, causing some to compare it to those of Norway. After having experienced both I can safely say those in Norway are more spectacular than those here in Iceland. Don’t get me wrong,  Iceland fjords are pretty, just not spectacular.

Highway 1 skirts the coastline and weaves in and out of the fjords. Farms are few and far between and the few villages commonly have only a few hundred people. By the way we have yet to see a Starbucks or McDonalds, which is probably a good thing. We chose to gas up each morning as we do not know when or where the next gas station might be. Some villages simply do not have any gas stations. Scott uses the opportunity to get an espresso as most stations do have a nice coffee bar inside.  Grocery stores are even hard to find and only seem to be in the larger towns.  We had a heck of a time trying to find a bag of ice to keep our lunch items cold.

Some interesting asides: Tap water is extremely cold and in some places the hot water comes from thermal springs, resulting in a bit of sulfur smell. The air smells fresh and clean.

As we worked our way up the east coast I was surprised by the lack of trees. Vegetation was mostly short grasses probably explaining why sheep are so prevalent.

Speaking of sheep I quickly noticed that they always seemed to be in either a group of 2 or a group of 3. They did not travel as large groups.. Scott reminded me that lambs usually has only one ewe, which would explain the grouping of 3. Obviously they do not kick out the youngster for a while as all three are what I would call, adult size.  The groups of two I attribute to a lack of successful pregnancy the previous year. Only rarely did I see a lone sheep- a confirmed bachelor no doubt! I asked a local if sheep had any predators. He said there are arctic foxes in Iceland that prey on very young sheep When they are still quite small. Other than that the sheep have no worries, or then getting whacked when crossing the road as we sometimes saw them do, but they are fast runners.

We stopped in Djupivogur, a village that dates back to the 16th century, to stretch our legs a bit and ended visiting the local craft shop and the shop of an eccentric road collector. Local art and crafts are priced very high. I simply did not see many people buying souvenirs.  Woolen hats are $50-80, sweaters are over $200. Small ceramic cups and dishes are often over $50. Very small ( a couple of ounces) bottles of local salt are over $10. Iceland is NOT a shopper’s dream. I wonder why they do not simply lower their prices for items tourists tend to buy to encourage more sales.

We ended up finishing our luncheon goodies eating at an abandoned homestead on the water as we wanted to push ahead to our destination of the day, Egilsstadir, so we had enough time to go visit the small village of Seydisfjordur, which guide books said was the quaintest of the fjord towns. It had the reputation of being an artist colony with colorful buildings.

The 30 minute drive took us over a high mountain pass, with a good- sized river flowing next to it for most of the way. And,of course, there were a few small waterfalls to admire along the way. Iceland certainly has a ton of waterfalls!  Well Seydisfjordur was somewhat a disappointment as there were only a few small shops offering art and crafts. Again everything was quite expensive. The buildings were colorful and we did enjoy a walk around town before retreating to a local pub for a well-earned brew before heading back to our hotel and dinner.

Another pick from good old Trip Advisor led us to a very good meal at Cafe Nielsen, located in the oldest building in town.

Even though most of the day was in a car I did manage to somehow rack up 10,033 steps! This is turning out to be a way too healthy vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

The day dawned with bright sunshine. Weather remains cool- low to mid 50s but we have the proper clothing and the fresh air was invigorating.

We wandered out to the southern most point of Iceland, a peninsula called “Dyrhólaey”, located only a small distance from our hotel. We ran out of time last night to visit it because of darkness. There is a lighthouse there as well of views up and down the coast line. Looking inland we could see the Mýrdalsjökull glacier where we had snowmobiled the day before. The views were spectacular.

Our  journey then took us eastward with a goal of reaching our next stop, Hofn, on the east coast of Iceland. Again we thought we would have plenty of time as we only had to drive 280km and our only scheduled activity was a boat ride on a lagoon loaded with icebergs that have broken off the nearby glacier.

This region of Iceland contains the largest national park in the country, Vatnajökull National Park, home to the largest icecap in all of Europe and home to 30 glaciers. The average depth of the ice is 400 meters and the maximum depth is 1000 meters.

The road to the park traverses the Mýrdalssandur flood plain, an extensive are that volcanic eruptions over the millenia has left devoid of almost everything but lava and glacial runoff. It is very desert like in appearance. On our left were the high mountains/glaciers and on our right was the sea.

We stopped in the small village of Kirkjubaejarklaustur to see what is called the “church floor”  a polished floor-like looking patch of columnar basalt. It is really not a church. Mother Nature created this polished surface of 6 sided columns of basalt eons ago. It is a popular tourist stop because of its unusual structure.

The highway passes close by a series of glaciers. By taking a 2 km gravel road we were able to get very close to the terminus of one of the glaciers and got some fabulous pictures.

We stopped at the visitor center for the national park and decided to take the “short” 1.6 km trail to a very photographed waterfall called “Svartifoss”. It is not that large of a waterfall (20 meters high) but it is surrounded by black basalt columns, making for a dramatic scene. We had to hurry somewhat as we needed to get to our boat ride in the iceberg lagoon later that afternoon. Scott had suggested we take along the few lunch type items purchased earlier in Vik and simply have a quick lunch once we reached the falls. 1.6 km (1 mile) would normally not be a problem; however, once we started we learned there was also a considerable uphill grade the entire way to the falls! Oops! We were not turning back.  I did make it to the falls after making a couple of stops to catch my breath (76 years old now). We ate our lunch, took some pictures and headed back to the car and the lagoon.

One of the major attractions in Iceland is taking a boat ride on the Jokulsarion Lagoon where icebergs that have broken off the huge Breideamerkurjokull ( don’t ask me to pronounce it) Glacier float their way out to sea where they ultimately melt away. This often takes some time (up to a year) as they must melt enough to not get hung up on the bottom of the lagoon. It is quite a sight!  Our ride was on an amphibian boat and lasted for about 40 minutes. We wove our way around the many floating icebergs, learned that the ice in them was 600-1000 years old. The crew brought aboard a chunk of crystal clear ice for us to photograph and taste. I had seen icebergs on my 2013 trip to Antarctica but was thrilled to experience them again as each one is a work of art, completely different in size, shape and texture. This is simply a “must do” excursion for anyone visiting Iceland.

We wound our way to our destination of the day, the village of Hofn where we stayed at a new modern small hotel called the “Milk Factory”. Don’t ask me where they came up with that theme and name.

We again used Trip Advisor to pick out our dinner restaurant, “Pakkus”, housed in an old  former warehouse on the waterfront. Hofn is noted for their langoustine (lobster family) which I had Scott ordered their salmon and we shared. Both were outstanding!

What we thought would be a short day turned out to be another long one!  16,463 steps, 32 flights of stairs (equivalent) and needless to say I slept well!