It may have been our last day today but there was lots of sightseeing still to do. We returned to the Hofburg to do the tour and bought a ticket that gave us access to the Silver Collection, the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments - yet another bargain! We managed to spend a surprisingly long time wandering around the Silver Museum. The contents of the imperial kitchens proved to be far more interesting than a bunch of pots and pans really should be. The four of us wandered around in a less than organised fashion and I know at one point I got distracted by something shiny and ended up doing part of the tour backwards. It didn't really matter. The basic appeal of the silver collection is in its name - silver. There is ... read more

We arrived in Vienna yesterday, took the train and taxi to our hostel and made ourselves right at home. The hostel is actually university accomodation rented out for the summer, with a couple of extra beds squeezed into each room. The rooms are still very spacious and comfortable and we have the added advantage of a communal lounge with table tennis, internet and TV as well as free run of the uni kitchens!! We did an early shopping trip this morning followed by a late breakfast in the kitchen. We set off for the nearest metro stop and began a 'stroll' around the captial. Vienna is a beautiful city. Founded around 500 BC, Vienna was originally a Celtic settlement. In 15 BCE, Vienna became a Roman frontier city (Vindobona) guarding the Roman Empire against Germanic tribes ... read more

We came full circle today as we travelled back to Reykjavík. The city was silent as we arrived. The marathon was on so presumably all the locals were gathered along certian streets. We had a whistle stop tour of the world's most northerly capital. Established by the Norse chieftan Ingolfur Amarson in around 874 CE the real development of Reykjavík began in the late 18th century. It currently has a population of about 120,000 with more than 200,000 living in the Greater Reykjavík Area. Reykjavík is also unusual in that most of the homes and businesses are heated by natural geothermal water. We began our very brief tour with a visit to Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran parish church which is the fourth tallest architectural structure in Iceland measuring 74.5 metres in height. State Architect Guðjón Samúelsson's design ... read more

Today was spent exploring the area around Lake Myvatn. Lake Myvatn is famous, bizarrely, for having a huge midge and mosquito population... in fact it's what the area is named for!! We began our day with a walk around the lake, which is Iceland's fourth largest and apparently the world's most fertile spot on a similar latitude. Mývatn is a shallow eutrophic lake situated in the area of active volcanism in the north of Iceland, not far from Krafla volcano. The lake was created by a large basaltic lava eruption 2,300 years ago, and the surrounding landscape is dominated by volcanic landforms, including lava pillars and pseudocraters. It is apparently a paradise for bird watchers but I failed to spot many. We did see eider ducks, red throated divers and the great northern diver but for ... read more

We began our trip today with a visit to Jokulsarlon Lagoon where we took a boat out amongst the blu-veined icebergs. Before 1950, the course of the Glacial River, Jokulsa, was about 1½ km long and the lagoon did not exist. Since then the glacier tongue has retreated and the lagoon is constantly growing in size. The average flow of the river is 250-300 m³/sec., and large chunks of ice break off the edge of the ice, which already floats on the water. We were all able to pile into one boat. The boats used to belong to the US marines and went straight from land to water. Our boat trip did not take us around the largest pieces of ice, presumbly for those good old 'health and safety' reasons. However it was amazing to float ... read more