Wendy and Jim's Travel Blog
Iceland Day 2 - Golden Circle
In Iceland, there are multiple tours with multiple companies to satisfy the desires of the exploding tourist population. We are taking two— the first, today is from Nice Travel, touring what is called “The Golden Circle”. It stops at four important geological sites, all within a 60 mile radius of Reykjavik. 
The countryside appears quickly outside the city limits passing beautiful landscapes, small groups of sheep (most are sent up into the mountains in the summer), mountains and extinct volcanoes like this one. ( There are about 130 in the country but only30 active ones!) We did not find the elusive Artic Fox, but loved seeing the one in the museum yesterday. 
Our first stop was Thingvellir Park. We haven’t quite figured out the letters in the Icelandic alphabet yet, this park is spelled with some kind of funny “p” -þ for the Th. A Unesco site, it is situated at the meeting point of the North American and EurasianTectonic plates. They move 2 centimeters further apart and the gap fills with magma. every year. Our guide Kiki quipped “ in a few thousand years we will be able to walk to China!” The lake, named Tingvallavtn is Iceland”s largest lake and contains water so clear you can always drink from it. 
The second stop was the Gullfoss ( Golden Waterfall). It is near the Long Glacier, (which has a name 3 times as long in Icelandic), 2nd largest in the nation. Beautiful, large rushing water made it a natural highlight. 
Geysir, our third stop just down the road has multiple geysers, pronounced “gee-sirs” and the origin of the word comes from the largest one here, named “ geysir”. We were not lucky enough to see it erupt, but the second largest one, “ Strokkyr” erupted several times while we were there. 
After a quick but big bowl of lamb soup, and managing not to buy anything in the very large tourist shop, we drove a bit to the last stop, the Kerid Volcano. Another of the inactive ones, this one collects rainwater and glacier run off in the bottom of the caldera which forms a beautiful lake. It was made even more famous a few years ago when producers built a platform in the middle of the lake and invited Bjork to sing an outdoor concert there
using the natural acoustics of the volcano’s sides. ( Sorry, no pic of that). 
Returned home tired, having again gotten in more than our 10,000 steps, and after a rest ( mostly to work on this), went to the food hall nearby for some Neapolitan pizza and an Italian beer. 
Tomorrow we do the South Coast tour and start even earlier.
#published #evernote
Our flight from Tampa through Detroit was delayed, but we arrived in Reykjavik without too much trouble. A pre-arranged cab picked us up from the airport bringing us to our hotel, Center Hotel Lauvevgar. Although nice, it was too early to check in, so we started out to explore the city. 
We then walked to the easiest sight to see, the famous Hallgrimskirja Lutheran Church, stopping to admire the rather large statue of Leif Eirksson just outside. 
The church was beautiful, the outside depicts the cliffs you see around Iceland. The organ and its pipes in the back is often used for concerts, but alas, not today. 
We took an elevator up to the bell tower to admire the view from all sides. 
Onto the high tech Perlan museum, concentrating on the natural wonders of Iceland. Sections on icebergs, volcanic eruptions ( particularly that of Eyjafjajokoll in 2010), and the famous Aurora Borealis made the 2 mile uphill walk worth it. 
Among the many interactive exhibits inside the museum was a -15 degree ice cave to teach about glaciers. 
There were also extremely in depth, creative videos on volcanos and the Northern Lights. (Limited photography allowed). 
But we had hit our wall and got a cab for the ride back to the hotel. After not too long a rest, we walked down Lauvevgar street, kind of the main drag, very tourist friendly street and stopped in a soup- in- a- breadbowl place that was fabulous. 
Down on the water saw the very famous Sun Voyager sculpture, shaped like an old Viking boat. It points northwest in the direction of the setting sun. 
We then went to experience a truly authentic Icelandic
experience: a bath in a public pool. This is a regular, almost daily ritual performed by locals of all ages, as individuals or groups. You follow a strict protocol first segregating by sexes to thoroughly scrub and shower (naked), then don your swim attire and head to one of several lap pools, hot tubs of varying temperatures, or saunas for coed bathing. Afterwards you shower again dry off thoroughly and get dressed. A wonderful way to end the day. 
A delicious dinner at Reykjavik Kitchen brought our day to a close. Wendy originally chose it because it’s close, finding out later, it is #3 on the list of top restaurants . You need reservations, it was fabulous!