First stop on the tour was pingvellir (web site or Wikipedia entry), the original meeting place of the alpingi (icelandic parliament). Iceland is quite proud to have the longest continuous parliament in the world, and pingvellir is preserved as the nation's first national park. For visitors now, it's basically a series of canyons and cliffs to climb around on, but it's absolutely gorgeous.
Stop number two was gullfoss (website or Wikipedia entry), or the golden waterfall. When we got out of the bus, the first thing we saw though was a glacier in the distance. The waterfalls themselves are spectacular. They go down a series of jumps in the landscape, and with the sun, there's always a spectacular rainbow across the canyon. Having seen say, Niagara Falls, and the commercialization around them, it was especially impressive to note how NON-commercial the area was. The view was absolutely breathtaking.
Final major stop of the trip was Geysir (website or Wikipedia entry). Geysir is the world's oldest Geysir, and the geyser after which all geysers on earth are named. Geysir itself doesn't erupt regularly anymore, but there are several other hot springs in the near vicinity of it, one of which (Strokkur) erupts every 8 minutes, and usually then 2 or 3 times immediately in a row. As we had been the whole trip thus far, we were really impressed by how clean and clear the water is. They say you can drink straight out of most springs, rivers, and lakes in Iceland since the water is *that* clean.
On the way to dinner, we made one more quick stop -- at a giant crater with a lake in the bottom. If you look at my crater lake picture below, you'll see a man in the bottom left near the lake's edge. He was singing Icelandic folk songs at the bottom of the crater for fun. The acoustics were quite good and it was an unexpected treat!
Finally, we stopped on the southern coast of Iceland for dinner. You can actually see the restaurant here. Each table was served a huge bucket of Icelandic lobster, and all that was on our own bill was drinks. It was absolutely delicious.
Our excursion didn't get us back to Reykjavik until 10pm. Not yet exhausted by all my exploring, I putzed around the hotel until nearly 11:30, and then decided that if Iceland really is the "land of the midnight sun", maybe I should get a picture of the sun at midnight ;), so I went for a walk and got even more harbor pictures. Hopefully, by now, you really have some idea of how un-dark the trip was. :)
my first view of a real life glacier :)
icelandic horses
gullfoss in all its glory (compare to the size of the people on the side to better appreciate the scale :P)
me and the falls
iceland really is quite green...
rainbow over the canyon
playing with camera angles
beautiful
a rainbow full of mathematicians?
the long way down
me in the mist
| Background/Intro | Sunday, June 11 | Monday, June 12 | Tuesday, June 13 |
| Wednesday, June 14 | Thursday, June 15 | Friday, June 16 | Saturday, June 17 |
welcome to pingvellir
water, water, everywhere
giant rocky crags
which way now?
me and a mountain
...absolutely gorgeous!
...into the canyon
me and cathy
rock scrambling :P
welcome to geysir
the geyser park
the one and only
it may *look* like the water's reflecting the sky, but...
... it actually is this blue,
...and this clear
strokkur erupting, take 1
strokkur erupting, take 2
strokkur erupting, take 3
strokkur erupting, closer up
little geysir :)
the crater lake (can you find the man in a black shirt on the left at the water's edge? he's seriously singing up a storm...)
view of the north atlantic from the southern shore of iceland
same beach, take 2
the "no tractor" signs all over downtown reykjavik seriously amused me no end :P
reykjavik harbor at midnight
midnight sun, take 2
apparently i just really like this sculpture :P