Day 3 19/1/08 - Iceland

Reykjavik

Highlight

• Today was taken up by the Golden Circle Tour run by Reykjavik Excursions. Another early start, we piled on another bus, for another patriotic Icelandic guide, and were on our way. The weather was much worst today, snow falling constantly. We got to our first stop, Nesjavellir power plant, before the sun came up.
• We got forced to watch a video about the high temperature geothermal area, and how it gets its energy from Lake ingvallavatn. Then we got to look outside at the steam and smell the sulphur.
• Back on the bus, to look at the Keri crater. Maybe it’s more interesting in the summer, but it was just a snow covered field with a big hole.
• Travelled through what was supposed to be fertile agricultural areas, but in essence you can just see snow. Arrived at Hverageri, which is supposed to contain greenhouses where Iceland grows their fruit and vegetable, but we couldn’t go and see it, so that was really boring.
• Sun beginning to come up now, so the bus ride was spectacular, with the sky changing colour and white everywhere.
• Sklholt church, which is supposed to be the ancient seat of the Icelandic bishops. The church itself is very boring, just a rectangular building, nothing like all the churches we’ve seen around Europe. The most interesting thing is the lovely mosaic on the altar.
• Next we were supposed to be heading to the highlight of the tour, the Gullfoss waterfall. Well, there was certainly a lot of water, and it is quite spectacular. It’s smaller than Victoria Falls, but much more powerful. In fact, we spent so much time there we were really rushed for lunch, as we only had ½ hour to spend there. The café just sells your basic provisions, but they have soup and hot bread rolls, so I was very happy. I was even happier that they give you free refills, so we had 3 bowls of it.
• Then off to the geyser called Geysir that originally gave these things a name, so I expected it to be spectacular, after seeing them in NZ and Japan, the whole geothermal area around the spouting hot springs weren’t that impressive, and you had to wait ages for it to blow. Because it took so long and the weather was deteriorating further, we didn’t spend too much time here.
• Last stop was also where we went last night, Ingvellir. It’s not so cool in the day, especially since it was covered with inches of snow, we did manage to get some shots of the cracks today though.
• The tour was a bit less than I expected, but we had dinner to look forward to. We got dropped off in town, and rested in a hotel lobby before making our way to Vidt Jornina for dinner. It’s very cute, like going to someone’s house for dinner, with separate little rooms as a dining area. Again, we were under dressed and loud, whereas everyone else was having a civilised evening. Everything was Icelandic prices, but the produce and the cooking was excellent, and made a good night out.
• We passed up on the opportunity to go clubbing as we were absolutely knackered from all those late nights, so just relaxed at the hotel with some poker and a lot of alcohol.

Food

• Hotel Cabin buffet:
  • ham
  • cheese
  • cucumber
  • tomato
  • bread with jam
  • oranges
  • cereal
  • yoghurt with mixers
• Gullfosskaffi lamb soup (1090 ISK) with hot bread rolls and refills
• rye bread
• salami
• lamb head jelly
• Scottish shortbread
• dinner at Vidt Jornina:
  • Hot smoked lamb's heart w/applesalad and horseradishcream (1600 ISK)
  • 2 kinds of mousse with langoustine’s tail (1750 ISK)
  • Herb-coated lambfillet w/dijon and redwinesauce (3860 ISK)
  • Grilled starry ray
  • bread
• Southern Comfort & Coke
• Vodka tonic
• chips and biscuits