Chapter Iceland
Iceland is a cold version of Hawaii — a frozen lava island with few and far-between conifers and birch trees. The small island-nation separated from Denmark in 1944 as Hitler terrorized the European Continent. This divergence allowed for a refueling stop for American forces. A safe space. The island is still a very American-friendly, safe space — English is as second nature as lava-percolated drinking water, and the accent is more American than British, too.
I travelled with my eldest daughter and ventured through Iceland for the cheaper EU flight experience to Greece. Icelandair offers lesser expensive airfare with up to a 72-hour layover. The smaller planes and shorter distance mean less fuel cost. We landed at 6am at the Keflavik International Airport with three hours of sleep.
Travel tip: do not stop for coffee directly off the plane, continue all the way through to baggage claim — they have coffee on the other side.
It was hard to know how to pack to go from an October Nordic Island to the Mediterranean temperatures of Greece, but we did our best and decided layers were better than our warmest (space-consuming) puffies. My daughter had mittens (unnecessary, but nice to have), and I, at the last moment, threw in a baseball cap. I thought the bill would be a nice sun-visor for Greece. It ended up an imperative in the land adjacent to the Land of the Midnight Sun (Norway). The horizons are very flat and the sun rode low through the sky, just at the perfect angle to debilitate a driver.
We rented a car and headed to the Blue Lagoon Hot Springs. We arrived at 9am and our reservation was at 10, so we laid back our chairs and slept in the car. (Check-in to our hotel was 3pm) My daughter has assumed the role of my husband — trip captain — with one caveat, I drove. (So, I am not a complete passenger princess.) Her navigation was impeccable.
Travel Tip: once on Wi-Fi at the airport sign-up for Airalo, an inexpensive eSIM for mapping, WhatsApp, etc.
Travel Tip: plan a pool reservation after the early morning landing — you get a shower and a cultural experience.
Iceland is the island of fire and ice, with thermal vents smoking out of hillsides like flight passengers in 1975 airplanes. However, the Blue Lagoon pool is filled with mineral salt water pumped 2000 meters up from the ocean, purified through the porous lava rock, and cooling to 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees F), without any sulfuric smells. For a set ticket price, you get two drinks (from non-alcoholic smoothies to beer and wine) and three face mud masks. The kiosks are on either side of the pool, so we did: mask-drink-mask-drink-mask. Then toured the entire length of the 94,000 sq ft pool. The water was a smoky, ice-colored blue, and never felt too much like human soup.
After our 10am - 2pm half-day reservation at the pool, we ate lunch in their restaurant and continued to our hotel in Reykjavik. Hitting check-in time perfectly — because my daughter is that good (a recurring theme). We showered again (more completely) and stepped out to explore the downtown.
The buildings in Iceland, overall, are brutalist — very pragmatic and unadorned. The winters, I imagine, are snowy and cold; salt-air from the ocean wreak havoc on all building exteriors; and materials are expensive to ship in. Maximizing the building envelope makes utilitarian sense. Architecturally, the country is not fancy like old Europe. Mostly cinder block and big windows (to allow in the fleeting winter light).
Several years ago, for Pride month, they closed a small section of a shopping district and painted the road in rainbow stripes, and creatively named it the Rainbow Street. It was so well received, they never changed it back. It’s now a small block of tourist shops, but fun nonetheless.
Our Canopy Hilton Hotel, however, was not fun nor pleasant. In fact, it was horrible. I could forgive the Friday night DJ that pumped until mid-night (except, it’s a hotel, why?, we are literally paying for place to sleep) if it weren’t for the drunk pedestrians at 1am conversing outside our window (who thought it funny that I gave them a dirty look from my puffy-eyed sleep face); the 5am grinding noise that sounded like gnawing rats in a vent (never figured out what that was, but I think it electrical); a cold room with no thermostat; a breaker popped for which I had to call the front desk; 6am furniture scraped across the floor like nails on a chalkboard; the 7am street cleaners; and the additional paid parking in the only parking structure for blocks. My Fitbit says I slept 10 hours and earned a sleep score of 85 — dubious — 1 star.
We woke early and set out to find an open coffee shop — despite the Google search showing “open,” this did not exist. We returned to the hotel for a breakfast buffet — at least they had unlimited drip coffee. Then, packed to drive the Golden Circle.
The roads are easy to navigate, and most everything is in English. The land is so flat, it’s easy to pass slower vehicles and tour buses; although we found the bus drivers cruised faster than most sightseers.
First stop was the UNESCO Thingvillir, which was a Norse political meeting spot where the Icelandic Elders gathered each summer to recite the laws, trade, and commune. Norse being an oral language. As Christianity overtook (by force) the local religion and introduced written language, the people recorded their Sagas — poems about their gods and history. Christianity then replaced Norse mythology (remember, in technical terms, Christianity is also a myth, as is the big bang theory). Behind closed doors, they held onto their gods (including a belief in a woman’s rights to abortion.) Which is why you still have the fables of trolls, dwarves, elves, and giants.
In the 18th century, a large earthquake ruined the natural stone gathering arena; the Icelanders abandoned this area for the city of Reykjavik. Thingvillir was a broad valley with plentiful water flowing from the volcanic mountain ranges. Prior to the earthquake, the locals cleared the area for agricultural purposes, which was covered with copious forests of rowans, birch, and juniper. They primarily used the land for grazing stout ponies and wooly sheep, and cutting trees for firewood and heating. It is now considered a desert, and the government is making efforts to re-tree the public lands. Because of the earthquake, a natural lake formed, filling in the meeting arena and drowning most archeological relics.
In 1944, Iceland, as a government, did a formal ceremony at the Thingvillir location to honor their heritage as a part of their independence from occupied Denmark.
From the ancient heritage site, we continued to the Strokkur geyser. This hot water spring spouts between the heights of Steamboat Springs (the highest, 300 ft) and Old Faithful (third highest, 150 ft). So, now, I have seen the three highest geysers in the world. Then the Gullfoss waterfalls. The Icelandic version of Niagara (so I have been told). It’s fairly impressive and wonderful to see its tiered wedding-cake descent over the dark cliffs. Ice columns and frosted mist drape everywhere between the black volcanic rock.
All three locations require getting out of your car and walking on a path. Roads and sidewalks have the understood right-hand drive rules. Walk on the right — pass when passing lanes allow. At the falls, on our way back to the parking lot, a tall, white male was passing people by pulling into the on-coming pedestrian traffic. The path was large enough for five abreast. My daughter and I walking two abreast and on-coming traffic about three. He pulled into my lane, and expected me (a woman) to pull in behind my daughter. I decided I would not do that. It’s like man-spreading, or a man assuming he gets the arm-rest in an airplane. So, I played chicken with him. We crashed. Had he stayed his course, it would have been chest to chest, but he veered at the last moment, and we hit shoulders. I refused to react. Apparently, he stumbled into the other people and looked back at me in shock. Bock, Bock, Bitch.
After that, we stopped at a lovely boutique yurt-tel base camp, restaurant and wool market for lunch: Skjol. It was average fish-in-chips (although the cod everywhere is like butter) and a wool market — not the over commercialized (and priced) typical Icelandic sweaters. The wool is fresh off the sheep farm, wool spun, homemade knitted products. I bought myself an adorable cowl. The server asked if I had a place to wear it. I told him I lived at the base of the ice-climbing capital of the US (Ouray). I do, in fact, have a place to wear it.
From there, we traveled the rest of the Golden Circle. We stopped at Skalhot Cathedral to stretch our legs. The church, also affected by the earthquake, has been rebuilt four times and excavated exhaustively, and had the only Nordic hut (that we saw) — although we couldn’t go inside the sod-roof church, it was a glimpse into the original life in a cold environment.
We skipped the Kerid Crater lake because of an overflowing parking lot (and have a much large caldera in our future) and stopped at a pull-out where a herd of Icelandic ponies grazed. (We were actually quite fortunate they were near the road.) They are ridiculously soft.
A couple things about Icealnd Horses -- while techincally the size of ponies, Icelandics call them horses. There is strict control of thier breeding. They cannot be bred with non-Icelandic horses or taken off the island. If they are taken off the island, they may not return. Icelandics do not bring thier best breeding horses to EU markets.
Then in the last quarter of the circle, we drove through a high mountain snow field. The interesting thing about this is moss grew on the south-face of the frozen lava boulders with the help of the geo-thermal heat. Mother Nature is amazing.
After, it was straight to our overnight hotel and a 4am wake-up alarm to jet-set through Copenhagen (three-hour layover) to Greece.
On the reversal of our trip, we had an overnight in Keflavik and stayed at the Hotel Berg. It is near the airport and they have a lovely outdoor heated pool which we enjoyed (although Keflavik itself is a minor fishing town/sleeper community). With four-hours to kill between check out and our flight, we walked to the Duushaus museum. It is located on the harbour, which our hotel overlooked. This is part modern art and contemporary heritage museum (20th centruy). The installation is sponsored by HS Orka geothermal energy company, who also own the Blue Lagoon. They are a leading company in global renewable energies. In the cultural wing of the museum, they have an entertaining video on disposable bag use -- seriously worth the watch, but I can't share it becuase of property rights.
Also located nearby is the Giantess Cave based off the very popular chidren's book Sigga and the Giantess by Herdís Egilsdóttir. It's a cute five minute excursion.
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