As I was perusing the internet, looking for top-rated things to see while here, I came upon Glacier Lagoon. The spectacular meeting of a glacier and the ocean, on the east side of Iceland. A place where glassy chunks of ice lay around on the beach, looking all beautiful. To all intents and purposes it appeared to be about a 3 hour drive from us. Doable.
We set out bright and early (after visiting the bakery) and followed directions through some mountains to the coast. This was also the way to the volcano we had plans to hike... plans disrupted by inclement weather. The road through the mountains was unusual. We felt like we had been led astray by Google. No-one else was out here! It was twisty and turny and heck of steep for this little car in this season.
Once at the coast we headed north. Funny thing is that I was noticing how slowly the car appeared to be making progress toward our destination. A quick check of Google Maps revealed it would actually take FIVE HOURS to get there! Oops. Screwed that up, didn't I?! New plan.
After regrouping at (you guessed it) a bakery, we headed inland to rejoin that Golden Circle loop where we had found some more interesting places to visit.
We stopped first at a famed Icelandic greenhouse. This particular one grows about 40% of Iceland's tomatoes, using geothermal heat and grow-lights powered by electricity that has been generated using geothermal steam. Crazy innovations! The tomato plants only live about 9 months and during that time they appear to grow about 15-20 feet, with just a tiny little pot of soil at the roots, but a constant supply of pure Icelandic water and a nutrient mix formulate by one of the owners.
We ate lunch here. Caprese salad and tomato soup - of course! It was comfortable and wonderful in the greenhouse. This might be the only place in Iceland I could work with joy and warm feet!
With full bellies and renewed energy, we headed out to brave the weather (on and off rain and fairly cold) to see what else Iceland offered up today.
Kerid Crater! Volcanic of course. This place was just off the main "golden circle road" we were on, and the hike around and into the crater was not too long. However, on arrival the heaven's opened up and we found ourselves waiting out the weather from the car. Boring? Not really. The people-watching was fascinating! With every wave of freezing torrential rain also came a wave of tourists tearing madly from the direction of the crater - dressed in jeans, fashion sneakers, hoodies and little more. How odd! When we finally left the car, I was dressed in merino base layer, snow pants, wool sweater, down jacket and rain jacket. I had a possum fur hat on and a wool buff but my head still absolutely needed the down jacket hoot and protective wind/rain hood of my jacket also. Did I mention the electric gloves? Vital.
We hiked the crater rim:
And then down to the bottom:
Pretty huh?
After this, things got a bit less successful... relative to the amount of planning done, I guess the expectation of success was kinda low anyway, but long story short is that we struggled to find a geothermal power station that was open. I had thoughts that we should learn about this technology. We tried... and have miles of backcountry road views to prove this!
And in the end we found a stunning ultra modern hotel perched on a hill over a valley and we stopped for a latte. A latte with pastries from this mornings bakery. Hahaha.
Tonight was our last night in Iceland and therefore the last opportunity to view the Northern Lights... if it hadn't been cancelled AGAIN. Too cloudy. It's a cloudy country so thank goodness we had found redeeming features like scenery, hot springs and great food.
What was for dinner, you ask?
We tried out our first Danish restaurant and I had a sandwich sampler. A bit like a flight of sandwiches.
Delish!
Last night in Reykjavik and while I loved my time here, I was also eager to come home to the fur-babies, the chickens and the puppy pictures (anticipation of puppy for real!) and settle in for the holiday season. :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment