Iceland - the Adventure Begins

Monday, Dec. 4, 2017

We had a leisurely morning to get our stuff packed and ready for the trip to Iceland. After breakfast I went for a walk around town to see some of the sites again and to stretch my legs before sitting in the airplane for a few hours.

This is the Royal Danish Theatre located in the public square downtown Copenhagen.

 

The stock exchange building 

The Parliament building 

Nyhavn area where the hotel was located 

A department store at the public square 

It was a 3 hour flight to Reykjavik. I was fortunate enough to get some great first shots of Iceland out of the plane as we were coming in for our landing. 

It was late when we arrived at the hotel so we just had dinner and retired for the evening.

Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017

Iceland is a Nordic island nation that is made up of many active and dormant volcanoes. It has a population of around 330,000. Over two-thirds of the people live in Reykjavik. I am impressed with the quality of infrastructure with well maintained roads and utility grid.

Today we traveled along the southern edge of the country to the Skaftafell region in the Vatnajökull National Park. It was still really dark when we left a little before 9 a.m. but as daylight began to awaken around 10 we could begin to see the beautiful area. We saw rugged mountains and volcanoes which are covered with massive glaciers. 

Rolled hay bales wrapped in plastic to protect them for the winter.

Icelandic horses (NOT ponies)

One of the beautiful waterfalls 

Moss covered lava fields 

You can see the glacial river beds where large amounts of water can be released all at once when the volcanic activity heats up under the ice cover. 

A glacier flowing from the mountains.

In the background you can see the twin points of the  Vatnajokull  glacier.

Part of a steel bridge that was destroyed during one of the massive water releases.

Hvannadalshnukur is the tallest mountain in Iceland and stands at  6,920 feet.

We had lunch in this quaint village. You can see it was beginning to snow.

The roads were beginning to get a little tricky as sleet and snow fell.

We just made it to the glacial lagoon of  Jökulsárlón before nightfall. There are huge iceberg type chunks of ice that have calved off the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier. The bluish hue of the ice reminded me of those icebergs in Antarctica.

Now this is the type of Mercedes I could use. 

The trip back to Vik took a while as the roads got progressively worse for a good distance. Tomorrow’s itinerary is iffy as the storm continues to arrive. Well, I did want to see Iceland in the winter. 🤔