August 20th - Iceland

Goodbye fjords, hello Iceland!

We arrived Iceland about 9 o'clock at night but there was still some daylight although it was chilly and rainy. This is the only part of our trip where we rented a car and shortly after picking it up after landing at the airport, we discovered that I booked a room about 40 minutes away from the international airport but near the original Reykjavik airport. So we're driving in rain and near darkness and it's a little chilly so we started off not having a great feeling about what we were doing here. After arriving at our bed and breakfast, we started feeling a little better because the owners were incredibly nice and friendly people. Our room was quite small and if you look at this first picture below you'll notice the sink was quite small as well. But after a good night's sleep we got up the next morning, it was not raining and we started our drive. So the next several pictures are just part of what we saw leaving Reykjavik headed for the National Park.

Gullfoss water falls

Tour groups in all sorts of vehicles like this one from the Czech Republic.

Our 7 year old granddaughter has developed quite a fondness for horses. She has a book about horses and in that book there is a breed called Icelandic ponies. So Maggie, check your book for the Icelandic Pony just like this one.

We saw at least 50 to 60 Farms that had herds of horses between at least 10 and up to 50 horses and we kept wondering what they did with these horses. Horses are expensive and the price of goods are expensive here so we were trying to figure out how they are using them. Well we talked to a guy who was born and raised here and we ask him what do people do with all these horses and he said "well let's just say the farmers don't go hungry."  So I guess there are plenty of filly fillets and stallion stakes.

When you see a sign like this as you're driving down the highway only one thought comes to my mind, "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!"

We are now on a ferry on our way to the Westman Islands, of which Heimaey is the largest and only inhabited one, which are off the southern coast of Iceland about 2 hours south/south east of Reykjavik.

When we got there the owner of our bed and breakfast personally drove us to the end of the island where the lighthouse was and where we could see puffins and gorgeous scenery as well as many sheep, as we hiked about 4.5 miles back to our b&b.  This is the most beautiful side of the island. 

When Bonnie taught fourth grade in Madison, Alabama, part of the curriculum was puffins and after teaching this for many years, this was a site that Bonnie definitely wanted to see if possible. So we were hoping that we would get to see at least one or two and as it turned out we saw thousands upon thousands of puffins. These guys are really cute!

Notice the rough terrain here, the puffins nest in the ground and they burrow holes into the Earth as you will see in another picture later. When they fly they have to flap their wings rapidly and constantly almost like their wingspan is not big enough for their body. Then when they land, they appear very awkward like they don't know how to stick the landing. They will stay crouched down with their wings spread apart almost like they're regaining their balance.

Here is a covered blind where people could go in and look at the puffins up close. We must have stayed here nearly an hour watching them.

The beaches are black sand because of a lava rock and it is very coarse but doesn't stick to you like the sand at all the beaches that we've been to in the states.

As we continued our walk along the coast back to our town we saw many, many more puffins.

Here you can see the hole of a puffin nest and you would see the young puffins keep coming out.  There would be 3 or 4 one right after another.  Inside the hole, they would tunnel into like a big room or a cave to have a safe haven for the young ones.

When we got back to the village we decided to hike up to the top of where a volcano blew its top back in 1973 starting January 23rd and ending July 3rd.  

This is looking down the other side from the top of the volcano.

There was very warm air coming out of the hole here where Bonnie has her hand, from vented fissures several feet below ground level.

After bringing the ferry back from the Westman Islands, we got in our car and started driving towards the famous Blue Lagoon. There are some other pictures included here of the things we saw on the way.

We are now back in Reykjavik and this church was modeled after a well known mountain here and Iceland. The Viking statue is of Leif Ericson, the son of Eric the Red, one of the famous Viking explorers.

SUMMARY: on this trip, we have used the following modes of transportation:

• airplane

• train

• subway

• trolley

• bus

• bicycle

• taxi

• ferry 

• cruise ship

• walking (marked and paved roads)

• hiking (unmarked and unfinished trails)

• car (other than taxi)

FAVORITES:

• Fjords 

• Aero Island,  Denmark 

• Heimaey Island, Iceland and of course the puffins 

LEAST FAVORITES:

• Helsinki,  Finland 

• Blue Lagoon,  Iceland