reykjavik

Our plane left the runway in London at 9:30, dark enough for the city to be a crown of lights with twilight quickly turning to night. Within in minutes, we were above the clouds and back into full sun. Our flight was three hours, and we landed with the sky turning the clouds red with the sunset. It was light enough at 12:30 when we went to bed that we had to make sure the curtains were pulled tight, all the seams closed. I have no idea how early the sun came up, but it was high in the sky by the time I was awake. Being able to make use of so much daylight after work is appealing, but I found it confusing when the light at 23:30 was what I’m used to seeing about the time I eat dinner. In a month or so, they will have weeks with no night.

Reykjavik is even smaller and less populated than Oslo, and we again experienced the feeling of being in a ghost town. It was relaxing to be away from the rush of cars and crush of people.

We spent our first day walking around the city, visiting the church that dominates the skyline, the geothermal storage towers with a viewing platform and revolving restaurant on top, and eating a highly recommended hot dog from a stand in the city center next to a flea market with an impressive fish market selling puffin eggs that are so colorful there is no need to decorate them at Easter.


We knew Iceland was expensive, so we made good use of the breakfast included with our room, then bought dinner at the supermarket. We had a cup of noodles each and improvised spoons from crackers until they disintegrated and then used stir sticks from the coffee service in the room.


On our second day, we joined a bus tour of the countryside where we viewed a geothermal plant from a distance, walked through the mid-Atlantic rift where North America and Europe are slowly being pulled apart, meandered around the area where the first and longest standing democratic assembly was formed, stood between the drops of a two-tiered waterfall, watched a geyser erupt every eight minutes or so, and gazed into the blue waters in the bottom of a volcanic crater.

The land on the entire drive was a vast plain of ancient lava covered in springy moss and hills mottled in golds, oranges, and reds from the heat under the ground. It was stunning scenery. When Iceland was first discovered, it was heavily forested and there is a reforestation program in progress, but it’s slow going.


We spent a few hours at the Blue Lagoon thermal pool before going to the airport on our last day. The blue-green milky water stood in stark contrast to the black surrounding lava, just as the warmth of the water contrasted with the chilly weather. Upon entering, the water is the temperature of a warm bath, but as we moved around the pool, a couple of acres in size, we discovered areas that felt like a hot bath to temperatures too warm for me to tolerate. We smeared silicon on our face and joined the other people for ten minutes of mud until it dried and we wiped it off. There seemed to be an even mix of foreign tourists and local Icelanders in the pool. Paul and I laughed when a loud woman with an distinct accent yelled at her husband to not put his glasses there or he’d lose them and another tourist paddling past us said, “I’m guessing she’s from New York.”

What we saw of Iceland was remarkable, and I recommend making a stop there on your next trip to or from Europe to the States.