Blogs from Northwest, Iceland, Europe - page 9

Today was incredible. After a stay at an unusual hotel which looked a bit like a prisoner of war camp we left in 5 degrees of cold. (The hotel was one of the boarding schools which exist in Iceland. Luckily we were staying in the modern bit as the old building looked dreadful. However, not to judge a book by its cover the dreadful building housed an elegant dining room where we had a delicious supper of peppered pork. ) In the morning we headed towards the most powerful waterfall in Europe...Dettifoss! The journey to get there took us over high peaks again with baren lunar looking landscapes. The road to Dettifoss was narrow and made of gravel. We stopped at a small farmstead up in the middle of nowhere. How these farmers live throughout the ... read more

Avui és dijous, dia 7 d'agost, i és el sisé dia de viatge. Aquests dos últims dies hem estat a la zona est de l'illa. A partir de dema ens dirigirem cap a la zona nord, la qual, a priori, sembla ser una de les zones més interessants de l'illa. El paissatge continua essent espectacular, i el temps sembla que millora poc a poc, tot i que les temperatures continuen sent més baixes del previst. El que continua sent un misteri és la poca vida que transmeten els pobles de l'illa. Són pobles inospits, i en els que practicament no es veu gent pel carrer, i on, fins i tot, és difícil trobar un lloc per poder prendre un café. Tot i aixo, el viatge continua sent molt complert. I aixo que encara ens queden tres ... read more

Iceland is now our favorite location on the face of this earth. Let me give you just a brief glimpse of this incredible country: 24 hours of sunlight, glaciers, waterfalls, volcanoes, calderas, mountains, rivers, fjords, geysers, icebergs, swimming pools, hot springs, light houses, gravel roads, single lane bridges, reindeer, sheep (yes Ray—Sheep), Icelandic horses, humpback whales, seals, puffins, etc… Lynne and I are presently sitting in a hostel in a small town in northwest Iceland. Grundarfjorour—situated in a fjord on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. We decided to stay here after meeting our new friend, Ilari, while we were in Reykjavik. Ilari is one of the two staff members at this hostel. While chatting with him in Reykavik, he invited us to come visit with him, so we took him up on it. The town is really a ... read more

I once spent three months farming sheep in Iceland. It was a bit of a drunken mistake applying for the job in the first place. Well, I say that but I can’t actually remember. Maybe it was a very carefully considered decision I made. I’d seen an Icelandic band play in a pub on the Saturday night and had gone home and checked them out online. From their site I found another and then another and eventually ended up applying for a job as a sheep farmer. So the farmer contacted me on the Monday, asked me if I could start on the Friday, I quit my job on the Tuesday and flew out on the Thursday. I stayed on the farm with the farmer and his wife but I had my own cottage out the ... read more