Iceland Day 1- Golden Circle
On Monday, May 28, we awoke to the sound of light rain hitting the windows of our room. It was very overcast and quite cold. I am guessing that it started out in the low 40's this morning. Brock and I bundled up in our warmest jackets and hats and set out with John and Becca for a long day of driving and sight-seeing in the interior of Iceland, in an area known as the "Golden Circle". John and Becca were more prepared for a winter day in Arizona than they were for the harsh weather we encountered in Iceland, but they never complained. They also never bought any warm jackets or hats - at least not until the very end of their stay!
Our first destination was Thingvellir National Park. But first we encountered a huge lake, Thingvallavatn, not far from our hotel. It's 30 square miles, Iceland's largest lake. Nine tenths of the water that flows into this lake comes from springs and fissures beneath its surface or at its shore. The water flows long distances underground, some of it all the way from Langjokull glacier in the north.
We enjoyed seeing some beautiful farms near the lake, and a storage facility for boats.
I really loved all the sheep farms we saw in Iceland, and the many cute lambs.
This was a very picturesque setting, and we took several photos of ourselves here:
It was hard to take a bad picture here!
Thingvellir National Park is by the river Oxara, which feeds into this same lake. This is the site of Althingi, formed around 930 AD by the Viking Settlers for legislative assembly. Here they created laws, settled disputes, determined punishments, etc. For example, adultery was declared punishable by death. I wonder if this applied to both men and women? When you hike around, it is astounding how difficult it must have been, because they left their homes and camped onsite, bringing livestock and food to sustain themselves while in session. Court proceedings continued to be held here until 1798.
Thingvellir lies within a belt of volcanic activity and fissures which passes across Iceland, a part of the mid-Atlantic Ridge, the junction of the American and Eurasian tectonic plates. This means that Thingvellir straddles two continents. Over the past 10,000 years the earth's crust has been subsiding and diverging here, one part of the land moving westward while another part is moving eastward, at a rate of 3/4 inch per year. Over 10,000 years the plates have separated by more than 230 feet and the valley floor has dropped by at least 130 feet. The fissures you can see are quite dramatic.
There is a farmhouse and church in the park.
We also found a lovely waterfall.
As we continued on, we came to a sign along the road in the middle of nowhere, pointing to "Cave People". We saw what appeared to be an RV in the area, so we drove down the dirt road to investigate. What we found was a large white tent, and we were greeted by an Icelandic man named Smari Stefansson, in traditional costume.
He was giving tours of a restored cave house. The original cave was chiseled out around 900 AD by some Irish missionaries. In the early 1900's, three different Icelandic families had lived in the cave, farming the land and keeping sheep and cows, and Smari restored it. He gave us an interesting tour and we finished with coffee and pastries in the warm tent. Smari enclosed the front of the cave to its original form:
To the left of the house was an open cave where the sheep were kept:
A potato garden yielded great results due to the abundance of natural fertilizer. The garden is behind John and Becca:
Brock made friends with Smari, who works as a ski guide during the winter:
Smari and his wife inside the warm tent:
We enjoyed our pastries on fine china:
By this time, the sun was coming out and it was warming up a little bit, maybe 50 degrees.
While driving, we had amazing scenery the whole way:
Our next stop was an area similar to Yellowstone but smaller, called "Geysir", which is how our word "Geyser" originated. The beautiful thermal feature "Geysir" was producing steam but otherwise dormant:
The active geyser "Strokkur" erupted about every 4 or 5 minutes to a height of 66 feet, spraying those who stood too close:
This was an interesting thermal feature:
Our next stop was to view Iceland's best-known natural wonder: a very dramatic waterfall called "Gullfoss". The River Hvita tumbles 105 ft. into a 1-1/2 mile ravine. The ravine is so deep that you can not see the bottom from the viewing points. It looks like a scene straight out of Lord of the Rings. Note the Rainbow:
John walked all the way out to the point and got soaked:
After all this, we went to Reykjavik for dinner and ate at the Lobster House:
The Langoustine soup and Icelandic Lobsters were delicious!
Needless to say, we slept well!