Trip to Iceland
Mike and Judy Henderson
July 3 to July 14, 2016
I'm going to leave this map of the cruise at the beginning of each web page so that you can relate what we describe to the location in Iceland.
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7/12/2016 The ship was met in Reykjavik by a group of dancing girls. Actually, the kids are hired for the summer by the city to greet cruise ships. Other teens are hired for the summer to do other tasks around the town, including cutting grass and picking up trash. I thought this was a really great idea. It gives the kids something to do, allows them to make some money, form bonds with friends, and it creates good will with the tourists. The dancers had arrived on their bicycles, did their routine, greeted the tourists, and then rode off on their bicycles.
On our tour that morning we first went to a geothermal power plant - the Hellisheidi power station This one is a bit over 300 megawatts and is either the third or sixth largest geothermal power plant in the world (depending on which source you check).
Here's one of the turbines and generator - 45 megawatts.
We then went to the Gullfoss waterfall.
Here's a view of the landscape around Gullfoss. I thought it was just spectacular.
After we left Gullfoss, we went to the Strokkur geyser area. Here's the geyser erupting, which happens about every five minutes. You can see a video of the geyser erupting at this link. And if you do a search for "video Strokkur geyser" you'll find many videos of the geyser. Here's a video explanation of how a geyser works.
Iceland has webcams on a number of their major tourist attractions. You can go to the geyser webcam here and see it erupt in real time.
And here's the overall Iceland webcam link.
After lunch, we visited a horse farm where some young women demonstrated their riding skills on Icelandic horses.
Note that this rider is side saddle and is wearing traditional ladies' riding garb from the past.
A group picture of the riders and their horses. The youngest (the one on the left) was a boy about ten, if I recall correctly.
Here's the ten year old demonstrating that his horse is gentle and calm enough for him to stand upright on the saddle.
Here, Judy and Kay are giving some love to one of the horses in the stable. Too bad we didn't bring any carrots.
Next, we headed to Thingvellir National Park. The park is a rift valley created by the moving apart of the American and Eurasian plates. It's not as famous as the East African Rift Valley but the process is similar.
Iceland's first Parliament met here in 930AD, and remained here until 1798.
Judy and I at the park.
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7/13/2016 The last day. They're getting ready to transport our luggage to the airport while we go on the last tours.
Tauck fills up the days, and we had a tour before we went to the airport. Our first stop was at Kleifarvatn Lake. It's a draining lake, which means that there's no river or stream outflow, but water drains through the porous rocks to the ocean. Our guide recommended a murder-mystery novel by an Icelandic author titled "The Draining Lake" which has this lake as a central feature in the story. I did get a copy of the book and read it - it was a good read.
Then we stopped at a hot spring area called Krysuvik.
Our last stop before the airport was at the Blue Lagoon. The water of the Blue Lagoon is the outflow from the nearby geothermal power plant. The facility is co-owned by a local dermatologist and a developer, and was built after the doctor saw the healing effects of the silica-laden water on a patient with a skin condition. They made a deal with the power company and created the Blue Lagoon. It's a modern and expensive place.
While it was nice to see the place, it didn't work for most of the women in the group to participate. The Blue Lagoon requires you take a full shower (including hair) before entering the lagoon and we were all on our way to the airport. There just wasn't time, hair products (such as shampoo and conditioners), equipment (hair blowers, curling irons, etc.) and makeup for the women to prepare themselves for travel if they went into the lagoon. Many more would have been able to participate if the visit had been scheduled at the end of a day when we were returning to the ship.
Here's a view of the warm area of the lagoon. It's sort of like a giant hot tub.
Here's the power plant that the water comes from.
On our way to the airport, we stopped at the Viking World Museum that houses Islendingur, a replica of the Gokstad Viking long ship. It was used to sail across the Atlantic in 2000 in commemoration of Leif Erikson's voyage in 1000. This shows part of the ship.
And Judy on the ship.
After that, we went to the Keflavik airport. Tauck had our luggage there, with each couple's luggage on a luggage cart which had been sorted and loaded by some of the local teens. Very nice service. Clearance all went well and we were able to use the Icelandair lounge while waiting for our flight.
Here's a picture of the security clearance area in Keflavik.
We had a four hour layover in Minneapolis and our Delta flight to LAX was delayed by about a half hour. But we reached LAX a bit after midnight. Our limo driver was waiting for us.
At that hour there was little traffic and we got home about 1:30am. The next day, we picked up Skipper and Bernie.
And that was the end of this adventure.
Epilogue: Judy went to the doctor and learned that she had broken her ankle. The break was not displaced so it should heal in about six weeks.