capri by audrey: Iceland

Its been so long since I last wrote. Between the last post and today, we've (or I've) travelled to Eurodisney, the Birmingham Quilt Festival, Iceland, Paris Premiere Vision Fair and Prague. I am so behind with the uploading of pictures!

Well, no time better than now.

We bought a package with Icelandair which included 4 nights at Hilton Reykjavik and a free whale watching tour which cost approximately 470 pounds in total (including the airfare). No complaints about the airline. Everything was pretty smooth sailing. When you land at the Reykavik airport, you're greeted by a rather strange sight. I assumed it was a fruit but my cleverer friends remarked that it looked like a bird, and indeed it was.It was a Jet Nest! (Good spot - Lyn!)

The artwork is designed by Magnús Tómasson. The Jet Nest shows a big steel egg where a jet wing is peeking out like a little bird breaking out of it's egg. The piece is symbolic where it stands on a pile of Icelandic rocks. Magnús Tómasson says that the idea first came to him many years ago. "I was working on a series on the history of birds mentioning a small egg and on it a small beek appears. I worked on it some more and the outcome was the Jet Nest, my biggest piece."

I don't think i will ever understand art.

But then again, our walk around the town was peppered with amusing wall decor...check out the ram and bull.

There isn't much else to see in Reykjavik the town. We had 5 days in Iceland which were just about enough days to see most of the recommended tours in the area at our leisure. Our 5 days were spent as follows:

Minus 1: Arrive in hotel at 2 am in the morning even though the flight touched down at 11 pm - be prepared for slow airport transfers and slow check-in. Everything seems to happen at a glacial pace....pun intended

Day 1: Explore Reykjavik town and whale watching in the afternoon (this was a complete waste of time. We got thoroughly soaked and saw zero whales. it turned out more to be whale finding than watching....). We did manage to have lobster bisque at a recommended little hut called Sea Baron. It did taste more like laksa (yes laksa) bisque than your normal lobster bisque. The german students next door didn't take to it at all!

Day 2: JOKULSARLON AND SOUTH COAST TOUR - The longest tour we signed up for which started from 8 am and ended at 10 pm. If you have been in other places where you're surrounded by floating icebergs, you may want to give this a miss. Otherwise if this is the closest you're likely to come to that experience, then it's well worth the trip. The rest of the sights along the way are nice too, like Skogarfoss and Seljalandfoss, but they can be seen on other tours as well.

Day 3: ESSENTIAL ICELAND TOUR (Volcanoes, waterfalls and glaciers) - the highlight of which was a drive in a 4 by 4 onto a glacier (without having to hike. the best. but then again the same tour had me crawling on all fours in the narrowest lava tunnel in pitch darkness. not very happy (and bruised) at the end of that as I am sure you can imagine.) The great thing about a 4x4 was that we could drive across rivers and into inaccessible places so we got very close to waterfalls like Barnafoss and Hraunfossar, where we had a picnic lunch. It was so serene, sitting on a grass patch having a sandwich and coke and watching a waterfall...

Day 4: GOLDEN CIRCLE TOUR - Gulfoss, the Geysir and Thingvellir (which we also saw on Day 3). Thingvellir is awe-inspiring, the Geysir was a bit of a touristy must-see once type of activity and Gulfoss was a nice waterfall but we didn't have enough time to soak it in.

Day 5: Blue Lagoon followed by 4 pm flight home. The Blue Lagoon is nice and you should set aside 2 hours at least to relax and enjoy the place. Not many food options there though. We ended up having the buffet lunch at the restaurant where david finally got to eat whale meat.

Comment about meals: Every night we were so tired out from the tours that we ended up eating pizza from the Pizza Hut in our hotel and once we had fish and chip once from a shop opposite the Sea Baron.

I must begin this write-up by managing your expectations of Iceland. 70% of the time you spend travelling between places and surrounded by this: desolate lava wasteland. So bring along some music, good company and a lug of cheery feelings.

Well, rather than put our trip down in words, the photos should speak for themselves.

What lava wasteland looks like

JOKULSARLON AND SOUTH COAST TOUR

Skogarfoss Waterfall

Boat ride on a glacial lake of Europe's largest glacier - Vatnajokull

Seljalandsfoss Falls - We could walk behind this waterfall!

Thingvellir National Park where the European and American Continental Plates part - good part about Iceland was that geography lessons came alive. Everywhere we turned, there was something out of the National Geographic magazine - techtonic plates, waterfalls, glaciers, meanders, cut-offs....it was breathtaking