Thursday, September 05
Iceland is a land of volcanoes and glaciers, lava fields and green
pastures, boiling thermal springs and ice-cold rivers. The first humans to
visit here appear to have been Irish monks, looking for solitude during the
ninth century. Soon afterward, Vikings
from Norway discovered Iceland and began to arrive in large numbers. Think Leif Erickson, who we all know is the
one who discovered North America a few hundred years before that Columbus
guy! The northernmost capital in the
world, Reykjavik was founded in 874 when Ingolfur Arnarson built his farm on
the peninsula where Reykjavik stands today.
Reykjavik is by far the largest community in Iceland, with a population
of about 200,000, which is about 60% of Iceland’s total population of 300,000
people.
Our tour today is called the Golden Circle Tour. This is Iceland’s most popular day trip out
of the Reykjavik port as it covers geysers, waterfalls, lakes, and
volcanoes. The Iceland Horizons tour
company van met our group of 14 cruise critic roll call members at the port and
off we went, along with many cruise ship buses.
I’m afraid all 3,000 passengers aboard the Caribbean Princess are headed
to the same places today!
Our first stop was to Thingvellir National Park. It is a geological wonderland with rock
formations and a beautiful river and Iceland’s largest natural lake. The water in this lake comes from the ice
field. We were told that it takes 25
years to make its way underground from the icefield to the lake—the water is
pristine clear. This area is the
historic meeting place of the Icelandic Vikings who developed the first
parliament in Europe as early as 930 AD.
Each tribe chose a chieftain and 38 of these local chieftains met at
this site 2 weeks each year to discuss common concerns, elect leadership and
decide policy.
When we pulled into the parking lot, hordes of people had already left
the tour buses and it was very crowded as we snaked our way around everyone to
see the view and take a photo. But it
was a most beautiful site.
Our next stop was at Gullfoss Waterfall: Glacial water is brownish, since it carries lots of sediments that the glacial ice has carved off the earth. Gullfoss is called the "Golden Falls", since on a sunny day the water plunging down the three-step staircase and then tumbling in two steps down into the deep crevice truly looks golden. As the story goes it's thanks to Sigríður Tómasdóttir that we can enjoy the beauty of Gullfoss, because she was the one that protested so intensely against the plans for a hydroelectric power plant at the site of the falls by going as far as to threaten that she would throw herself into Gullfoss and thereby kill herself.
To make her threat believable she went barefoot on a protest march from Gullfoss to Reykjavik on unpaved roads and when she arrived after 24 miles her feet were bleeding and she was in very bad shape.
The people believed her and listened and the
powerplant at Gullfoss was never built.
Next stop was at the geysers. One geyser would pop up about every 10
minutes or so. I was able to catch it
blowing up its steam. Looks like some
people like to get up really close to the falling hot, steamy water.
We had time to wander through the gift shop.
Very, very expensive! Not unusual to see
items listed for 22,900 kroner. (About
$200USD) A stocking hat we liked was
$57USD. It remained in the gift shop.
Our driver/guide had a couple other stops in
mind for us before we headed back to Reykjavik.
First one was another waterfall, that he called a mini Niagara
Falls. And we were the ONLY ones there!
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| A salmon ladder on the left of the falls. |
Then he said he would show us where some
people may go when they die…..what?? He
drove into a mining area that was all red rock and said “welcome to hell”. I didn’t catch what kind of mining this was.
We passed a point in the river where the
water from the falls, which is murky due to picking up minerals along the way,
meets the water from the lake that we saw in the morning in the Thingvellir
National Park, which comes from the icefield underground and is very
clear. We definitely could see the two
different waters.
Back in Reykjavik we saw a few sites in the
city before being dropped off at the ship.
Again, we had a wonderful day in Iceland. We were so lucky that we had 3 days of
sunshine. The locals told us that the
weather for the previous month had been rain and fog every day.
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| My favorite T-shirt |
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