Day 2: The Golden Circle. Plus Lobsters.
Jul. 9th, 2012 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
life_of_glamourToday, after a lovely breakfast and directions from our innkeeper (Just one :-( for her, she almost smiled!) we got up and hit the Golden Circle - the big tourist route. If you only spend a couple of days in Iceland, you will invariably do the Golden Circle. We got it out of the way early in the trip because we hate tourists. Oh, no, wait, because that's what our itinerary said to do. That's the ticket!
Ok, first up, Thingvellir, which is actually spelled Þingvellir, as if a P had dropped it's bump a bit. (funny little letter called a thorn, pronounced like the "th" in thought, which they use, along with several other custom letters, ALL THE TIME, as if it were a real letter! It's quite endearing! And hard to pronounce - and while we're on the subject, the words here have entirely too many letters! It's like they're descended from Germanic tribes or something!).
So, Thingvellir (or Pingvellir),( is the site of the ancient Icelandic parliament, the Alþing (Althing), dating back to 930. Before we got to the site of the actual Althing we were distracted (shiny!) by a waterfall behind a fissure wall about 300 meters before the parking lot for the Althing. So we hiked around behind the first wall to get a picture of the waterfall!
Then we continued on to the Althing and took a look at the Lögberg, or Law Rock, where the laws were proclaimed and Parliament met. (Note: nobody actually knows which rock was the Law Rock of yore, so they have all decided that THIS one is as good as any other and proclaimed this one the Law Rock, by general custom and utility.)
I must state for the record now that there are SO MANY, MANY more pictures that we've taken that are not making it into this post, I took 90 pictures today, in just one day. Every direction you look here is an amazing view. The valley we traveled through to get to the Alþing was jaw-dropping - fissures rifting throughout the value due to on-going tectonic plate shifting. The valley where they held Parliament is literally the point where the European and North American tectonic plates are splitting apart, and 10,000 years ago that valley wasn't even a valley - the cliff face against which Parliament was held was not a cliff face but was even with the valley. All this geology causes some unbelievable beautiful scenery, of which I have tons of photos stored away, and a minute fraction of them are getting uploaded. Just FYI, I guess. This place is too beautiful for a camera anyway, any picture I take has miles of beautiful landscape cut off of either edge. There's just no way to capture it with such a limited medium. To balance out all this beauty, though, they have the tour-bus drivers of Iceland :-(:-(:-(:-(:-( yes, that's right, FIVE grumpy faces - that's the highest score you can get! Because they are so far the most mind-blowingly rude people we have encountered here.
Right then, next stop was Geysir, the original geyser - the place after which all other geysers in the world are named! Of course, The Geysir is no longer blowing, Geysir has retired and handed over the family business to a young upstart named Strokkur (Strokkur? I barely know'er!). The new generation is putting on quite a display, blowing every 3-5 minutes.
There's also the usual array of boiling mudpots, steaming fields, and crystal-clear ponds in a beautiful array of colors. Plus goofy-looking tourists.
The gift shops along the Golden Circle sell some of the most suspect woolens I have ever encountered. Because we have photographed this one, you can all breathe a sigh of relief that we did not have to purchase it to prove it exists, and hence press it upon one of our friends as a gift.
Despite whatever look you may believe you see on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cathyn's face, he is really quite delighted with this item. He tried on 3 of the four available colors, just to be sure they were as much fun as they look.
Next stop: Gullfoss, the largest waterfall in Iceland.
As huge and imposing as that may look, that is only half of Gulfoss, as it is actually two waterfalls in one. We walked down to the falls perch, and up to the top to try to get some pictures that captured the immense power and beauty of Gullfoss. Anywhere along the trail down to the falls it is too misty to even open the lens cap. Up at the top, it is too close to get the whole thing into one picture. So, we failed, but I'm going to share the best one I got anyway.
Those little tiny ants you can see on the rock outcropping there are people. It is truly immense.
And our final stop was Kerið. The d with a little slash through it is pronounced like "th" in the. Anyway, Kerið is a crater from a volcano. A big hole in the ground, with water in the bottom, that apparently Bjork held a concert in once, singing from a boat in the water, but the acoustics weren't very good. I don't know about the acoustics, but it is extremely windy up on the rim. We hiked around the rim trail at the top, and checked out the pretty water and crater walls.
And to round it all out, since we were nearby, and since we'd spent all day hiking up and down hill and dale, we headed to a place lauded by Frommer's as somewhere that people drive all the way from Reykjavik to enjoy a lobster feast, so we did the same. Mmmm lobster feast!
And now, I'm gonna go soak in the hot tub. The people of Iceland have fully embraced a hot-water culture. Every town has public pools (heated geothermally, of course), spas, hot tubs, mineral bath springs, etc. Our hotel has a hot tub and a sauna. Then it's bedtime and on with day 3 - I can't remember now where we're going next! I'll let you know once we've been!
Ok, first up, Thingvellir, which is actually spelled Þingvellir, as if a P had dropped it's bump a bit. (funny little letter called a thorn, pronounced like the "th" in thought, which they use, along with several other custom letters, ALL THE TIME, as if it were a real letter! It's quite endearing! And hard to pronounce - and while we're on the subject, the words here have entirely too many letters! It's like they're descended from Germanic tribes or something!).
So, Thingvellir (or Pingvellir),( is the site of the ancient Icelandic parliament, the Alþing (Althing), dating back to 930. Before we got to the site of the actual Althing we were distracted (shiny!) by a waterfall behind a fissure wall about 300 meters before the parking lot for the Althing. So we hiked around behind the first wall to get a picture of the waterfall!
Then we continued on to the Althing and took a look at the Lögberg, or Law Rock, where the laws were proclaimed and Parliament met. (Note: nobody actually knows which rock was the Law Rock of yore, so they have all decided that THIS one is as good as any other and proclaimed this one the Law Rock, by general custom and utility.)
I must state for the record now that there are SO MANY, MANY more pictures that we've taken that are not making it into this post, I took 90 pictures today, in just one day. Every direction you look here is an amazing view. The valley we traveled through to get to the Alþing was jaw-dropping - fissures rifting throughout the value due to on-going tectonic plate shifting. The valley where they held Parliament is literally the point where the European and North American tectonic plates are splitting apart, and 10,000 years ago that valley wasn't even a valley - the cliff face against which Parliament was held was not a cliff face but was even with the valley. All this geology causes some unbelievable beautiful scenery, of which I have tons of photos stored away, and a minute fraction of them are getting uploaded. Just FYI, I guess. This place is too beautiful for a camera anyway, any picture I take has miles of beautiful landscape cut off of either edge. There's just no way to capture it with such a limited medium. To balance out all this beauty, though, they have the tour-bus drivers of Iceland :-(:-(:-(:-(:-( yes, that's right, FIVE grumpy faces - that's the highest score you can get! Because they are so far the most mind-blowingly rude people we have encountered here.
Right then, next stop was Geysir, the original geyser - the place after which all other geysers in the world are named! Of course, The Geysir is no longer blowing, Geysir has retired and handed over the family business to a young upstart named Strokkur (Strokkur? I barely know'er!). The new generation is putting on quite a display, blowing every 3-5 minutes.
There's also the usual array of boiling mudpots, steaming fields, and crystal-clear ponds in a beautiful array of colors. Plus goofy-looking tourists.
The gift shops along the Golden Circle sell some of the most suspect woolens I have ever encountered. Because we have photographed this one, you can all breathe a sigh of relief that we did not have to purchase it to prove it exists, and hence press it upon one of our friends as a gift.
Despite whatever look you may believe you see on
cathyn's face, he is really quite delighted with this item. He tried on 3 of the four available colors, just to be sure they were as much fun as they look. Next stop: Gullfoss, the largest waterfall in Iceland.
As huge and imposing as that may look, that is only half of Gulfoss, as it is actually two waterfalls in one. We walked down to the falls perch, and up to the top to try to get some pictures that captured the immense power and beauty of Gullfoss. Anywhere along the trail down to the falls it is too misty to even open the lens cap. Up at the top, it is too close to get the whole thing into one picture. So, we failed, but I'm going to share the best one I got anyway.
Those little tiny ants you can see on the rock outcropping there are people. It is truly immense.
And our final stop was Kerið. The d with a little slash through it is pronounced like "th" in the. Anyway, Kerið is a crater from a volcano. A big hole in the ground, with water in the bottom, that apparently Bjork held a concert in once, singing from a boat in the water, but the acoustics weren't very good. I don't know about the acoustics, but it is extremely windy up on the rim. We hiked around the rim trail at the top, and checked out the pretty water and crater walls.
And to round it all out, since we were nearby, and since we'd spent all day hiking up and down hill and dale, we headed to a place lauded by Frommer's as somewhere that people drive all the way from Reykjavik to enjoy a lobster feast, so we did the same. Mmmm lobster feast!
And now, I'm gonna go soak in the hot tub. The people of Iceland have fully embraced a hot-water culture. Every town has public pools (heated geothermally, of course), spas, hot tubs, mineral bath springs, etc. Our hotel has a hot tub and a sauna. Then it's bedtime and on with day 3 - I can't remember now where we're going next! I'll let you know once we've been!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 10:24 pm (UTC)Shouldn't she be called "blowwur" then?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 11:11 pm (UTC)It's their fault! Somebody stamped their little foot, and lo...!
Also, why can't I have a lobster feast?
[Oops: I mistyped, and now I am earwormed by a non-existent song called "Lobster Feet"...]
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 07:58 pm (UTC)We stopped somewhere in Iceland which claimed to have a lobster festival and all things lobster; but the alleged lobsters were really a kind of crayfish. Looking at the photo here, I'm suspecting
no subject
Date: 2012-07-09 11:20 pm (UTC)I need to add Iceland to my growing list of "must see" places.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 04:27 am (UTC)Quite the thorny problem, eh?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 04:48 am (UTC)My name, in its proper Scandinavian form, looks like this, apparently:
Þurið
Kooky.
Iceland looks breathtaking!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-10 05:48 am (UTC)Cathyn take note. Heehee!
Also, lobster feast?!?
Goddammit!
no subject
Date: 2012-07-11 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-16 11:48 pm (UTC)