Travel to Iceland, Northwest.

This day started in Akureyri. We were up and out of our hotel early and we were able to walk around and enjoy this picturesque city, before hoping into the car for our next adventure.

The area we were travelling through is known for horse breeding. The Icelandic Horse is a unique breed of horse and is recognized as such world-wide. They are smaller than the horses we're used to seeing in North America but their manes are quite voluminous. Along our route we decided to pull over to the side of the road to snap a few pics of some horses we saw grazing in a field. As luck would have it one of the horses was quite friendly and he wandered over to us to say hello. We got to spend quite a bit of time petting him and exchanging Iceland stories. A few of his friends came over and also posed for a few shots. All was good until Andra realized her sunglasses were missing, we were so well treated by the horses that we hate to accuse them of theft.

After bidding our friends adieu we continued heading south west to the Grabrok crater in the Bifrost area; the crater had a short 5 to 10 minute trek to the top and while it was fairly large and impressive it didn't compare to the craters we had just seen in the Lake Myvatn area. We snapped a few pics and headed back to the car.

Chris then found an obscure reference in a road atlas to a waterfall not too far down the road called Glanni. Andra was skeptical but Chris insisted they check it out. Sure enough, Glanni, roared valiantly a short walk from the roadside. While Chris supported Glanni's waterfall efforts, Andra found Glanni's waterfall performance meagre in comparison to his larger more well known siblings and she didn't feel his performance was worth the stop... It's safe to say that Glanni welcomed at least 2 visitors that day but he only stole the heart of one... poor Glanni...

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Travel to Iceland.

We experienced a lot of water today. Some glacial and falling over cliffs, some hot and bubbling up from the ground and even a bit from the sky.

It was a good day.

We started in Thingvellir National park which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This is the location of Iceland's first parliament (~900AD) and it drew the chiefs from each of the clans across the country. It has high cliffs created from the separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. These geo-historical shifts have resulted in a beautiful landscape filled with striking rock walls, mossy fields, a waterfall and some crystal clear streams; it's not hard to see why the first settlers picked this place to meet. After Thingvellir we moved on to Geysir where we saw steam and water bubbling from the earths surface. The water coming from the earth in this geothermal area of Iceland can reach more than 100 degrees celcius and in some spots will climax with a 30 meter explosion into the air.

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Travel to Iceland, Southwest, Hvalfjörður.

Hotel Glymur is one of the best hotels in Iceland, it certainly is one of the best we have ever stayed in and we have stayed in innumerable hotels. The service was impeccable.

We had villa Nature and we had all the amenities we needed. But for me the highlight was soaking in a hot tub, heated naturally from the volcanic lava passing beneath under the moonlit sky. The sensation was weird but exhilarating. Lying there in the hot bubbling bath, feeling the icy wind blowing on the surface of the bath, looking at the moon, shrouded by darkness and silence was a fitting end to a day spent sight seeing, walking over glaciers and hours driving from one scenic spot to another.

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Travel to Iceland, Southwest, Reykjavík.

This is my first contribution. This is just a hobby, an off shoot of another hobby, traveling. We have been seriously bitten by the travel bug. This blog is primarily intended as a way of remembering, a virtual souvenir, a travelogue for family and close friends.

We were on our way to Iceland from Heathrow for our 2012 Christmas holiday. The weather was surprisingly fine half way across the North Sea, when we started to have several bumps and air pockets. The captain ordered the suspension of the food service, and we settled down waiting for the last part of the flight to be over. Everyone was watching the onboard movie when suddenly the captain announced that we have a slight problem, on landing our braking coefficient was 'rather low' and that we would have difficulty getting down at Keflavik.

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