Blogs from Southwest, Iceland, Europe - page 50

Having just arrived in the "Smoky Bay" yesterday, we were happy to be able to sleep through our first night of - well - no night. Around June 21st, the days in Iceland are neverending, and even in the south, it never gets even remotely dark. The bikes still packed away in bags, our first mission for the day is to assemble them. Also, two of my former colleagues from Edinburgh uni, an Icelandic couple, recently moved back to Reykjavik. When we got in touch with them, they were eager to meet up - another item on the agenda. Meeting Stefan and Elinborg, who are also on bikes, they give us a short tour around town, and we stop by for lunch at a nice small restaurant that serves fish on skewers. This is also where ... read more

Hold me up. I have just been to the most amazing country on this planet. Well, that I have visited anyway. I have always wanted to travel to Iceland since I was a wee little boy, associating the exotic country with eskimos and polar bears and that crazy singer Björk. Instead, we were greeted with cyan-coloured hotsprings, ginormous geysers, thunderous waterfalls, volcanic craters, breathtaking landscapes, humpback whales and non-stop partying in the 23 hours of daylight. Aaron uncannily has relations who live in Reykjavik, who were kind enough to put us up for the week. Dennis and Eyrun live in an apartment in Reykjavik and also have a summer house near Selfoss in the Grimsnes area. Dennis was a wonderful host and tour guide, first taking us to the Blue Lagoon for some much needed R&R ... read more

Iceland is one of those places that seems far removed from the beaten track. As we flew the red eye north from New York, over snowy Greenland, the brilliant orange sun began to rise over the horizon at 3:30 am. This is, in fact, the land of the midnight sun with only 4 hours of darkness this time of year. Our Iceland Air stewardess was dressed in a 1960s style outfit complete with a pill box hat and it was interesting to listen to her translate their ancient Norse/Viking language into English. We had 4 days to explore Iceland before boarding the Voyager, so even though we had major jet lag, we hit the ground running. We expected cold weather with rain or snow but instead we were pleasantly surprised when the sun was shining and ... read more

30th April We made our way to Heathrow via the tube. It couldn’t have been easier. Once at the airport, we grabbed a tasty lunch and before we knew it, we were flying over Scotland and heading the furthest North either of us have been. Once we had got our bags back, we headed outside to catch a 50km bus ride to Reykjavik. It was so cold that our exhalation was visible; it went right to my bones and to think that summer is nearly here. Weirdly, the bus station in Reykjavik was in the middle of nowhere and there was only one bus company. We had no idea what was going to happen. We disembarked off the big coach only to climb onto a minibus and the driver said something in Icelandic to which ... read more

Iceland is awesome. Anyone new to the region can’t help but be astonished by the dramatic, volatile landscape and the scenic offerings it contains. It’s a Lord of the Rings -eque white washed desert with an array of stunning vistas. Anything from azul-blue jagged glaziers, snow capped peaks and thundering wide waterfalls high up in the silent mountains... to stark deep canyons, miles of lava fields and picturesque rivers running between the isolated fishing villages. Rising up on every horizon are natural chimneys of steam smoking up out of the geothermic land. A remarkable sight that inspired the first Norwegian settlers in the 9th century to name this island’s capital, Reykjavik, (the Icelandic translation literally meaning ’Smoky Bay’). You really do feel like you’re getting close to the edge of the world. ... Whether or not ... read more