Most people's idea of a Holiday normally consists of sun an sand, but if you limit yourself to only going to places for the weather, you're missing out on half the world.
Iceland is a 2.45 hour flight from London. Put on a film when you take off and by the time the film is finished, you're about to land. Make sure you wrap up though... its not called Iceland for no reason.
Its not a very big country, it is the most sparsely populated country in Europe with over two thirds of the population living in the capital Reykjavik. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active, with both the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates running through it. The last volcanic eruption, happening in 2010 causing enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over six days. You may remember it in the news.
There isn’t much
to do in Iceland, tourist wise so you really don’t need to be there more than 4
– 5 days. There are three main tours that you take:
1. The
Northern Lights
Also known as
Aurora Borealis, is a natural light show that appears when solar wind particles
collide with air molecules in the earths atmosphere, transferring their energy
into light.
The tour can be cancelled if the guide believes the weather conditions aren't good enough to see the lights, they don’t want to waste their time or yours. Luckily our tour wasn’t cancelled, even though both tours where cancelled the day before and the day after. Now that doesn’t mean we had a clear night, it was still fairly cloudy but the conditions where better then they had been. You take a coach to an open field or where the guides think is the best place to see the lights. We stood around in the cold for about an hour looking up to the sky not seeing anything, just as everyone was giving up hope and about to get back onto the coach there was a strong wind, the clouds passed and the sky lit up. I have never witnessed anything more beautiful. It only lasted a couple of minutes before the clouds moved back in and darkness fell.
What you see in
pictures isn’t what you see in person. To capture the perfect image you have to
open the lens and slow down the shutter speed and whatever but the guide will
tell you what you need to know.
2. The Goldern Circle
A marketing name
given to one of the tours, a circular route covering around 190 miles stopping
at three places:
Strokkur
The word geyser comes from the Icelandic word geysa 'to gush'. Geysers are generally associated with the volcanic areas. As the water boils, the resulting
pressure forces a superheated column of steam and water to the surface through
the geyser's internal plumbing.
Stokkur is Iceland’s most famous geyser erupting every
6-10 minutes with heights of up to 40 meters high.
Gullfoss waterfall
The average amount of water running down the waterfall
is 140 cubic meters per second. As you approach the waterfall, the edge is
obscured from view giving the illusion that the water vanishes into the earth. The river rushes southward, and about a
kilometer above the falls it turns sharply to the right and flows down into a
wide curved three-step ‘staircase’ and then abruptly plunges in two stages into
a crevice 32 meters deep.
Thingvellir
National Park
A site of
historical, cultural and geographical significance and is one of the most
popular tourist sites in Iceland. The
park lies in a ridge valley, which is the boundary between the North American
tectonic plate and the Eurasian tectonic plate.
The continental
rift between the plates can be seen clearly, as it has caused a canyon running
through the park. The moving of the tectonic plates are the cause of Iceland’s
measurable earthquakes.
The Blue Lagoon
A geothermal spa
located in a lava field, on the southwestern part of the island.
The lagoon is man
made, which is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant,
and is renewed every two days. Superheated water is vented from the ground near
a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going
through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger
to provide heat for a water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon
for recreational and medical users to bathe in.
We went at night
around 8:00pm; bearing in mind the lagoon closes at 10:00pm but two hours was
long enough. Going in the evening meant it wasn’t as busy as it can get during
the day, which was great because who wants to be overcrowded.
The blue lagoon
was probably my favorite out of everything we did. Being in a geothermal pool,
in below freezing temperatures outside, looking up to a clear sky with the
stars and the moon above… words can not describe how incredible and perfect an
experience this was.
(I didn't take my camera as I didn't want to get it wet, this image I found online)
