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Blogs from East, Iceland, Europe
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July 26th 2012
Last night our hostess had a little surprise for us at dinner, songs which made us feel very welcome. The east fjords greeted us with rain and fog when we set off. Until we got over to the southeast part. Not really sunny but not rain and no wind. A few stops on the way, see the photos. Then to the Glacier Lagoon which is always fantastic. We were at the hotel around 6 in the afternoon.... read more
July 3rd 2012
Day 3 – We woke up early today and had some breakfast – I had Skyr of course, with some museli. Then we got started on our day. We were heading out to Skalanes, another farmhouse in the eastern fjords. But our first stop was very cool. We headed to the place where icebergs that have broken off from the glacier head out to sea. It was very cold, but not raining (!) and it was so cool to see. We watched the icebergs sail out, some crashing into other larger ones that had gotten caught on the bottom and creating a big show and tumble of ice. Then we went down to the beach and stood with the ice that had washed up to shore. A very novel experience. From there we had a lot ... read more
July 30th 2011
Djupivogur, Iceland Today we approached Iceland for the first time. We boarded a small boat headed to the island of Papey. It is privately owned and farmed by one family since 1902. They don’t live on the island but there are cabins where someone who really wants to get away form it all can vacation. They raise Icelandic Sheep but that wasn’t the reason I wanted to go there. It is a major breeding ground for puffins and seals. We donned our life vests and motored out for about ½ hour before we slowed and drifted by a very small island where seals breed. The big bulls kept a wary eye on us while a few of the younger animals were in the water looking for fish. There were hundreds it not thousands of puffins flying ... read more
July 26th 2011
Tuesday July 26th, 2011 Seydisfjordur, Iceland Norwegian Sea We have traveled west from the coast of Norway following the path of the Norse explorers of old. They were a hardy lot and so the traditionally rough seas of the North Atlantic that we encountered would not have deterred them. It did, however, make a lot of the passengers and quite a few of the crew sick. It has been the roughest seas we have been through since we left Fort Lauderdale last January. The Captain said we encountered 60 mph winds and waves of 15 feet on top of the usual ocean swells. They even put barf bags out all over the ship and handed them out in the Cabaret Lounge during lectures and shows. Antwerp, Belgium was a modern cosmopolitan city with great architecture and ... read more
July 14th 2011
Iceland's stunning landscape, much like its people, is a ever curious mix of spectacular contradictions. Icelandic people are often hip, urban, modern and worldly, but they are also just as often the sturdy, rugged farming and fishing sort, tightly tied to tradition. Yet each live side by side, one representing Iceland just as strongly as the next. Similarly, Iceland's score of thundering waterfalls, with streams icy blue pouring into green meadows, is a stark contrast to her steaming volcanoes surrounded by abysses of gray ash. But they are both very much Iceland. As are its miles of snowy glaciers, stretching alongside the black sand beaches of the Atlantic, separated only by the two-lane pavement of Route 1. In Iceland, everything is in motion. Massive pieces of broken slate, as if from a giant shattered blackboard, ... read more
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August 9th 2010
We were hoping to do a hike today since the day before was just sitting in the car pretty much. We got a few recommendations to do a hike in the north of the East fjords so it was exactly where we headed in the morning and we found a nice trail to follow. The walk was fairly easy and took around four hours so not too bad. The aim of it was to reach a blue lagoon which is in the middle of massive boulders left over from an avalanche that happened some time ago. We passed a few people along the way but only about eight for the whole time so a lot of time for ourselves which was very nice. From here we headed inland to Reykjahlid which is supposed to be around ... read more
August 8th 2010
This day we did the least tourist things but by far the most driving. We started to head north through the Eastern fjords but the weather turned bad so it was very slow progress through this area. A very large fog came and made visibility pretty much nonexistent so it was very slow progress for the day. We were lucky enough to get some sun at times though and the views were amazing of the mountains along the coast road. The East is very much of the tourist trail with hardly any traffic at all for most of the time and if only the sun was out it would have been a perfect drive but we have been lucky enough for the other days. Most people choose to skip the Eastern fjords and do the Western ... read more
November 10th 2009
I was pulled out form the bed at 8:30am every morning and the first thing to do is to make breakfast for everyone, basically I used the left over soup, pasta and fish cakes from the night before and re-heat'em and topped with fried eggs and bacon, before we continuted our way 80km towards west to Skaftafell National Park via Highway No.1. We parked our car outisde the tourist centre, then hiked 45 minutes and brought us to the mouth of Svartifoss Waterfall, something I've been really excited about seeing since I started planning to go Iceland. According to Lonely Planet, the water flows from the world's 3rd largest icecap and flows into the Arctic Ocean, south of Iceland. The weather was clear and sunny as we arrive, and the waterfall itself was amazingly beautiful and ... read more
July 19th 2009
Mon 7-28-08 Besides having read about the Arctic in books and having seen the glossy photos in magazines, I had never really given much thought to what lay north of me. I live on Lake Erie, and so “north” is zebra mussels and maple-leaved flags. When mum sent me the scholarship application, I filled it out on a whim. It would be wonderful to travel, and as an aspiring biologist and a life-long nature lover, I was sure that I would find myriads of interesting flora and fauna . . . in the mean time, I had studying to do . One of my references, Tim Catalano, lent me Barry Lopez’s “Arctic Dreams” when he heard of where I might be travelling. Despite the press of finals (especially chemistry) I devoured the book. Lopez’s book brought ... read more
Eastern Promise: The Great Forest and fixing a motorbike with bamboo sticks
Published: September 24th 2008Europe » Iceland » East
September 24th 2008
With the sun out and a warm breeze we had a walk round the landscape around the hostel. Kasia was feeling a bit under the weather from some pesky cold so we kept it fairly short. We set off north, inland now over the pass deeper into Eastern Iceland. Up a gravel road (and on a steep bend) Rosa unexpectedly came face to face with a bus and became detached from her motorcycle. Unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing to be detached from the motorcycle - a footrest came off too. There was only one thing for it, as soon as we could get a safe place to stop, Erling and Rosa set about fixing the bike with whatever there was to hand. Remember that programme on the telly - “Rough Science”, where some scientists were ... read more
