Iceland fun

A few years ago we visited Iceland in June. We spent a couple of weeks during the longest days of summer. It was strange was during all that time we did not have any night time. We landed in Keflavic airport at nearly midnight. There is a strange egg - I believe a dinosaur egg - sculpture out side the airport. There were people paragliding at 1am... so many cars and people about. Do they not sleep? Was told that the Icelanders make most of day light hours in summer.


While I have lots of photos of Iceland, I wanted a quick share of the geysers and waterfalls as a continuation from the geysers of Yellowstone. Here is one which took a long time to snap as I got the slow bulging of the water and then building up of the bubble before it erupts. Since I have put on so many spectacular geysers in Yellowstone blog that I limit the pictures here to actually start of the eruption.



Nearby the geyser there is a small smoldering hole spewing out the gases.... lovely sulphur smell. In fact the whole island smells of sulphur and one gets used to it farily quickly. Despite this the air is clean and lacks the pollution we are used to in other countries. This is a heaven for people who suffer from dust allergy or hay fever or breathing problems with pollution. Actually even the water tastes of sulphur as it is coming from the thermal springs. But again I had no problems drinking it or showerng in it. Hot water comes right from the thremal spings and does the skin a world of good too.


An old volcanic crater that is now filled with water and is a high lake. One climbs up the slope and can walk around the rim for a bit.


This was a beautiful site... smoldering lava fields ... almost like those cinema shots where the actor slowly can disappear into the mist. Me being faciful again I guess.


You had to walk across this small field of snow to get ot the lava fields. This was mid June!!! well we had all weathers int eh fortnight - snow, winds, rain, hale and sunshine!


This was a visit to the lagoon with icebergs.. its in a Bond film.. You get into these buses which can just float as boats in the water. You have to put on lifejackets. Maybe I will put up pictures fo the icebergs another day!


The tour guide actually hauled out a peice of ice which is a 1000 years old. As you cna see it is so clear and clean. Apparetly this is the ice that gets sent to big hotels round the world to be added to whiskey shots... do I really believe this?

On the way to see a waterfall .. Svartifoss.... just found this perspective interesting.


Waterfall with old columns of basalt formed from early volcanic eruptions.


The next few pictures are of different waterfalls that we visited during our time there.


I think this one is Gullfoss.




Intersting scupture in bronze.
Akureyuri - a town in north of the island. A quiet palce as you can see from the high street below.


The cement cathedral in Rekyjavic

The skies are darkening for a storm in Husavik behind this church on the hill.

I will put up another post with more details and pictures of Iceland another time.