Blogs from Akureyri, North, Iceland, Europe - page 4

Today brought a slow start. Judith was up until 12am watching the sunset - see the first photo. Others stayed up until 10:30ish. We discovered yesterday that Sam loves black currant Ribena - thus the photo of him trying to keep it from Mike. Once we got moving we traveled to Akureyri. There we visited the botanical gardens - beautiful. The alpine plants exhibit had items from all over the world. Each continent was well represented. Sam and Emma spent some time entertaining a young girl (1 1/2 years old) by doing cartwheels and flips in a grassy area. In talking with the girl's mother she mentioned that quite often cruise ships come to Akureyri and they close down many of the streets and town roads are like traffic jams - so glad we aren't in ... read more

Today we packed up early and left for Dalvik by 8am. Along the way we passed more beautiful waterfalls and a set of turf houses - the two remaining were used for sheep. The other turf houses were removed when the Ring Road was built. Our journey took us through the desolate highlands region northwest of Egilsstadir. This landscape was barren and reminded us of pictures we've seen of the moon landing. Of course that took Mike into conspiracy theories of whether they really went to the moon or whether they just took pictures here. So as we continued we noticed cairns along the road - these were built centuries ago by the bishops to designate regions. Eventually someone had to go the bathroom so we pulled off at Grimsstadir. As we drove the 4km through ... read more

Samedi le 4 juillet, la météo est moins coopérative que la veille. Le brouillard est très bas et tout est gris. Nous continuons notre route dans les fjords de l’Est puis vers Akureyri, la « capitale » de nord de l’Islande et deuxième ville du pays avec ses nombreux 15 000 habitants. La première destination est Seydisfjordur, supposément le plus beau village de pêcheurs de la côte Est. Peut-être était-ce le temps grizaillou (nouveau mot inventé?), mais personne n’a été vraiment impressionné. C’est aussi là que certains ont perdu un peu d’intérêt pour les « foss » (chutes), étant restés dans la voiture pour cette énième. C’est vrai que passé la douzaine, elles commencent vraiment à se ressembler. Juste samedi, je pense qu’on en a vu 5 ou 6, en plus des petites cascades qu’il y ... read more

I wake to a new day in Iceland and find that the promised sunshine prompting my booking of an Icelandic horse trek was nowhere to be seen. Instead there are soft, fat, fluffy snow flakes dusting the pavements and decorating the pine trees outside my hostel. I have a lovely lazy morning catching up on blogging, reading, snoozing and after a quick trip to the Bonus supermarket - yes, finally a shop is open! - some treats to trough on. My lift to the stables arrives and I find it is the owner, a lovely lady in the coolest jumper/cardigan/coat I've ever seen. It is twisted over making a kind of snood, cowl cloak effect - brilliant design effort and something she just chucks on to get from house to car (I asked her!). When we ... read more

I arrive at Reykjavik's domestic airport after a bit of a detour via a hotel restaurant - map reading blooper but I realise I'm actually really early and can afford to have some grub before I find the actual terminal building - only to find the flight is delayed by half an hour. I settle down to read my book and add a bit to my blog before finally my flight is ready to depart. We're in a fairly small aircraft, just two seats each side of the aisle and you have to walk up the steps into the plane from the tarmac. We are quickly airborne and as I'm in a window seat I can see all that's outside - which is mostly the tops of fluffy clouds! So much for seeing a bit of ... read more