Mum's been to Iceland, or "round Iceland with a cucumber"
 

Hi everyone,

as threatened I'm making a start on my trip report about our very recent holiday in Iceland, which was, like many trips if we're being honest, a bit of a curate's egg.

First of all - us. there's me, a 52 year old lawyer/mum of 2, DD, aged 20 and studying animal biology at uni, DS, 17, at college hopefully studying something occasionally, and DH, aged 59 and father of the aforesaid offspring.

we live in Cornwall on a small-holding [yes, that is what small farms are called in the UK] with 2 dogs, 2 donkeys, 26 chickens, 2 budgies, and 2 snakes. move over noah.

Why Iceland? - I suspect the answer is in the preceding paragraphs - we like animals and nature. specifically it was jointly the idea of DS and DH, egging each other on, partly i suspect to get their own back on me and DD "dragging" them to Venice at easter. [poor things].

THE BEST BITS:

waking up on our first morning to find oyster-catchers and arctic terns just outside the door to our summerhouse.

floating round icebergs on a glacial lagoon.

the beautiful cathedral and its surroundings at Skalholt

DS getting soaked by a geysir.

the nearby waterfalls at Gullfoss.

the western fjords.

being nose to nose with a puffin [or 6] at the bird-cliffs at the most westerly tip of europe.

watching orcas [killer whales] and dolphins up close.

the hotel glymur.

the national museum of Iceland.

Flying home.

THE NOT SUCH GOOD BITS:

in general the food. whether in guest house or supermarket, it really wasn't very good, even if you liked lamb. if you didn't it was very bad. [the hotel Glymur was an honourable exception.]

the roads - apart from the "ring-road" they can be very dodgy with gravel surfaces at best, and huge pot-holes at worst.

the amount of driving required to get from one "good" bit to another, especially because of the state of the roads. [see above].

the "summerhouse" we booked over the internet for nights 8-10 of the holiday. it was little more than a shed, and we had to share that with campers doing their ablutions. we only lasted one night. [see below]

DS losing his mobile somewhere. it's not at home as he claimed when we realised he'd not got it with him. we're going to ring it and see what happens.

the journey home. 4 hours at Stanstead are not easy to tolerate, especially when you've got up at 4.30am.


OUR ITINERARY.

Day 1 – Tues 29th July - fly to Iceland from Newquay to Reykjavik via Stanstead. stay in self-catering "summerhouse" in southern Iceland for 3 nights.

Days 2&3 – explore the south

Day 4 – Fri 1st August. Leave south for "Golden circle" area. stay at farm guest house for 2 nights near Geysir. explore golden circle area.

Day 6 – Sun 3rd Aug. Leave Gulfoss for western fjords – 400km.
Stay 2 nights Hotel flokalundur, on Vatnsfjordur.

Day 7 – Mon 4th Explore latrabjarg bird cliffs and Dynjandi waterfalls.

Day 8 – Tues 5th-Leave Flokalundur. Ferry from Bjanslaeker arrives Stykkisholmur 3pm. Drive south for 35 km, stay 3 nights in summerhouse at Kverna horse farm.

Day 9 & 10 - Explore snaefellnes peninsular including, hopefully, whale watching or other boat trip.

Day 11 – Fri 8th - Drive south to Blue Lagoon near airport, staying Northern lights hotel. [approx 200km]. tour Reykjavik en route.

Day 12 – fly home. leave hotel at 5.30 am, arriving home at 6pm.

NEXT - WHAT WE ACTUALLY DID.

PS.

we've found the mobile. It's in Copenhagen. don't ask.

ann,

Sounds like a fascinating trip.

I like that you are going to give us all the facts - good, bad and ugly,

Looking forward to more.

gruezi

I hope this is as funny as "round ireland with a fridge." :-d

You're off to a great start! Looking forward to more! :)

I don't think I'd do any of this but I can hardly wait to hear the rest of the story.

I can't wait to hear more! (And I'm so tempted to ask about the mobile, but I'm biting my tongue...)

Hi again, folks,

Day 1. We're off.

our wonderful housesitter has volunteered to take us to the airport - she's used to getting up early as her DH is a postman. so she arrives at 6am bright-eyed and bushy tailed whilst we are distinctly grouchy. the mood is not improved when we try to cram our luggage [trimmed to a mimimum due to Ryanair weight restrictions] into her car. it goes, just. hopefully DH won't notice that one of our rucksacks is full of food i have been too mean to leave behind, including 2, [yes, that's right, 2] cucumbers I picked yesterday. the housesitter has assured me she loathes cucumber, and I don't grow so many that I'm willing to give them away to just anyone. so in have gone the cucumbers, plus some apples, tomoatoes, and a bit of salad. well, quite a lot of salad, but it doesn't weigh much, does it?

at the airport, our packing juggling has paid off. we beat the 15kgs limit by at least 0.15kgs on every bag. when every kg excess costs about £12, my investment in a digital luggage scale [£19.95 from Lakeland] has been handsomely rewarded. [don't forget to take it with you, will you, so you can use it on the return journey?]

then we are crammed into the less than luxurious departure lounge [and that's stretching it a bit] at Newquay awaiting the delayed flight to Stanstead. I suppose it's better than it was - the first time we used it, the baggage reclaim was a trestle table - I walked past it first time round.

after a delay of about 45 minutes, we're finally called, and being Ryanair there is a mad dash for the seats. [Un]fortunately we get seats all together. we have had some breakfast and filled up our empty water-bottles in the toilets [the rules say you can't bring water in bottles air-side, but it doesn't say anything about empty bottles!] so we don't need to buy anything on the flight.

at Stanstead, we have about 2 hours to spare. we wander over to the Iceland Express desk, and as there is a line of about 4 people, check-in is indeed express. we learn that by pre-booking our seats for £7 each, we qualify for fast-track security. [if you are flying from Stanstead, it's well-worth seeing if you can qualify for this facility]. so instead of the endless queue to be undressed and examined, we get to whiz through with the crews and VIPS.

but this STILL leaves us with about two hours to fill less 10 minutes or so. so like Hobbits, we decide on a 2nd breakfast, and go for FRankie and Bennies, for the simple reason that it's the closest to the entrance. the breakfasts are pretty standard fare, but improved greatly by freshly squeezed orange-juice.

Still an hour to go, we so wander around the duty-free, [DH persuades me that the cost of booze in Iceland justifies taking our own so we buy a bottle of Armangnac and some Toblerone for the kids] the book shops [can't carry any more], and gaze at the champagne and oyster bar. At Standtead???

After an age, the flight is called and we trundle off on the shuttle to the other part of the airport, where we finally get on board the "Iceland Express". it's reasonably comfortable, and the flight only lasts less than 3 hours. so in very little time, we're there. Iceland. and it's hot. terrific.

you may have heard that Iceland is expensive. it is. one of the highest costs is car hire. for 12 days hire of a Suzuki Grand Vitara, it cost about £110 a day. [if I've got the exchange rates right- we'd booked it in January and they's changed by the time we got there in July - I'll check it later when I get the credit card bill]. this was through Tiger, and we picked up at the Budget desk. I didn't opt for super CDW [we'd already paid for the normal CDW] and I can't not remember what it cost, but I soon wished we had.

Being adventureous types, we'd decided not to stay in Reykjavik the first night, but to drive towards the south where we wanted to see the waterfalls and glaciers, and possibly the westermann islands. to get there you can either drive along the "ring road" [which circles Iceland, more or less] or take a more circuitous route though the national park south of the airport, and along the coast. No prizes for guessing which we chose, thinking that we'd use this opportunity to see some of the country.

well, we certainly did that. the tarmac suddenly disappears, and there we are on gravel, interspersed with potholes of various sizes. the scenery is very dramatic - mountains, lava fields, glacial lakes fringed with black sandy beaches, hot springs gurgling up through the rocks, all within an hour of arriving. Wow.

AFter about 100kms, the land levels out a bit, and becomes much greener and softer - this is the greenhouse of Iceland, where the geothermal energy is used to grow crops, such as tomatoes and veg, even bananas! [allegedly].

this is where we've booked our first 3 nights, in a cottage on a farm near Hvollsvollur. [south of Selfoss]. this was all arranged through www.farmholidays.is, who grade and inspect hotels, guest houses, and self-catering cottages, called summerhouses in Iceland.

ours is at a place called Smaratun [no.650] in a Cat III summerhouse, one of three set well away from the rest of the property where there's a hotel and some other accommodation in sleeping bags or "made-up beds". [both very common in Iceland and reasonably cheap if you don't mind being friendly with strangers!]

for 10,000 kr a night we get two bedrooms, plenty of living space, a fully eqipped kitchen, small bathroom, and our own hot tub. this is roughly half the price of a hotel with two double/twin rooms with bath/shower, so for the 4 of us it's a considerable saving. plus we're hoping to do some self-catering and save on the cost of food as well. some hope!

but that night, we opt for a meal in the restaurant. [I'd picked places where we could get a meal if we want to, not knowing what cooking for ourselves would be like. this turns out to have been a lucky choice]. well, it wasn't brilliant, but for about £15 each, we get a three-course meal of soup, chicken in sauce plus vegetables, and some dessert I've forgotten. a bargain for Iceland, as we later discover, all served by a german girl who complains bitterly that the weather is much too hot for Iceland and NOT what she'd gone there for!

then it's back to the cottage to make up our beds [linen and towels provided for and extra 1000 kr each], jump in the hot tub, and go to bed.

NEXT - lava, icebergs, and dead sheep.

I love it that you brought your cucumbers with you! I'm a cucumber fan too.

It's been decades since I've flown Iceland Airlines. Do they really strip search you unless you pay 7 pounds extra? Or was that Cornish humor?

More, please. And I'm really, really curious about the mobile, but I shan't ask.

EL

Love it, bookmarking for the next installment.

Great beginning - can't wait for more . . .

Great report, looking forward to the rest, but what are budgies please?

Hi again,

thanks for the feed-back -

Adrienne - perhaps we should have a special smilie for cucumber fans -or perhaps not!

the reference to the strip search was to the zealousness of the security search at Stanstead. I'm all in favour of not being blown up, but sometimes it strikes me that the rules simply enable any jobsworth to get his jollies by harassing innocent passengers. anyway, the £7 just lets you get through the process quicker, as well as boooking a specific seat on the flight. On the way back we didn't bother, reckoning that there wouldn't be such a scrum at Keflavik at 6am. WRONG!

Nikki- "budgie" is a common UK diminiutive for "budgerigar" which you might recognise as a small parakeet often kept as a pet cage bird here - native to australia i think. [and following DH letting one go accidentally a few months ago, native to Cornwall too, I shouldn't wonder].

el344 - I'll put you out of your misery about the errant mobile- as far as I can. by the simple expedient of phoning its number, we discovered that it was in someone's office in Denmark - presumably DS dropped it on the flight out to Iceland, and that's where the plane eventually ended up having a proper clean. the kind person who licked up said that s/he would pass it to their handling agent, who turn out to be SAS, and another kind person has said that they will post it to us. I'll let you know if/when it turns up.

I'm personally quite attached to this mobile as I've spent a considerable time recovering it from previous escapades - being dropped in bushes at school [guess who had to scrabble about trying to locate it whilst the family phoned it from home?] and being almost drowned on the beach at Portreath being my favourites. I was tempted to suggest that DS go to Copenhagen to get it back but I doubt that SAS would send HIM back free of charge!

anyway, on with the story.

DAY 2.

the summerhouse at Smaratun, whilst a great deal better than the later one, still was not luxurious. the beds [bunks with a double underneath, a single on top] were not the most comfortable and as it was hot we'd had to keep the windowns open which in tru ncaused the venetian blinds to rattle all night. consequently, not much sleep was had and we were awake and ready to go by 8am. [9am on BST of course, which might explain something].

did I mention we'd done some shopping the night before? the mere act of finding a supermarket was an undertaking - for some reason I'd convinced myself that "opid" was the name of a supermarket. so we drove round Selfoss, a reasonably sized town, looking for a "opid". after total failure on that score, we found another one at a petrol station [very common in Iceland we disclovered] and laid in some basic provisions. I've just found the bill. I'd like to be able to tell you what we bought for our 2,743kr, but my Icelandic isn't up to the translation. but I can tell you that a 500gr box of cornflakes cost about £3 or U$6 - which is twice UK prices.

anyway, this enabled us to get our own simple breakfasts [a great saving on the hotel which wanted 1000kr or about £7 each] and make an early start. But at what???

the night before,we'd discussed out options, and the family had decided upon a glacier walk first, followed by a drive to Vik [the most southerly town in Iceland reputedly with a most interesting and beautiful beach] via the waterfalls at Skogar. well, the first problem was that, having negotiated the perilous 10km track up to the glacier, which was grey and somewhat disappointing, truth be told, the guides for the glacier walk never turned up, but I did get attacked by the bench that someone had left at the meeting point, which was suddenly picked up by the wind and hurled at my legs.

so we beat a retreat back down the self-same perilous track, and headed for the waterfall, which did indeed live up to its billing. I don't think that it's possible to say about waterfalls "if you've seen one you've seen them all", and Skogar is a cracker. About 100ft high, with a lovely deep pool at the bottom. DS, as ever drawn to water, ventured close enough to get the first of many soakings, and then decided he'd climb to the top [via a path i should add] to dry off.

I decided that I'd be safer at the bottom, and promtly twisted my ankle when I missed the bottom step coming out of the ladies. ho hum.

then it was off to Vik [pronounced as in wick, or sick] which proved to be a lovely drive, over rolling countryside, with glimpses of the sea beyond. Vik, however, was a bit of a let-down, and nothing to write home about. Lunch WAS memorable, mainly because we consumed the first of many sheep that were destined to be our staple fare. and the soup that invariably precedes it.

What to do now? I should at this point explain that we have a time-honoured way of planning our holiday activities. [you must understand that I'm trying very hard at this point to give a wholly unbiased account, but the rest of the family might feel that I'm being just a tad unfair]. I read lots of guide books and consult my fellow fodorites, and compile lists of possible excursions and trips, which I explain to the assembled company in advance. then at the time, the family completely ignore my suggestions, grab the nearest leaflet with pretty pictures on it, and decide they want to go there - now.

which explains how we came to be driving 200km each way on beautiful hot afternoon all the way to see icebergs on a lagoon. which we had decided ages ago it wouldn't be practical to get to because of the distance.

trying hard to put a positive spin on the adventure, it did enable us to see a great deal of the south of Iceland - at least what we could see from the ring road - twice. there are indeed beautiful glaciers [at least, they're beautiful from a distance], lakes, black sand beaches, and lava fields. lots of lava fields. some are totally barren, and look more desolate than the moon. some are slightly less so and have moss growing on them which makes them look like a load of dead sheep. some have great boulders of lava, and some are quite flat.

AFter we thought that we couldn't possibly drive any further, we were finally there. the lagoon at Jokulsarlon at the foot of the Vatnajokkull, that being the biggest remaining glacier in Iceland, is full of icebergs that have broken off the glacier and float about until they eventually find their way out to sea. amphibious trucks take you on a sail around the icebergs, during which you learn about them and get to eat a bit of glacier ice, if you like. [DS did like of course, the rset of us passed].

and after cheering mugs of hot chocolate, it was time to go back - past the glaciers, the lakes, all the various lava fields [and the most strangely positoned aluminium "Islandia" hotel right in the middle of the most desolate one] to our summerhouse, tired and hungry. what to eat??? - well, cucumber sandwiches of course, followed by coffee and toblerone, and a soak in the hot tub. yum.

what we should have done of course, was to have planned our trip to take in the lagoon in the first place. it is a long way round iceland, and 11/12 days is a bit tight for getting all the way round it, and we should have missed the western fjords, but the north is also full of birds and fjords.

tomorrow - onwards and upwards.

Hi annhig we got back on Monday from 2 weeks in Iceland travelling from the South/East and then back to the South/West and upto the North.

We had a great time although some very long days but the warm sunny days helped (I even got a sun tan).

Enjoying your post (and saving me a job). We weren't lucky enough to see Orcas but had a close encounter with a humpback which was amazing.

The food was a little hit in miss in the Guesthouses we stayed but in all we found them pretty good and the lamb we had was good. Although we also took provisions and even had room for a box of cornflakes!

The roads were the worst bit for me added with some long days travelling. How we managed to keep going on some days is a miracle.

Hi Ted,

looking at your route it's surprising we didn't meet!

don't know about you, but we met very few Brits [assuming you are]; mainly Germans but lots of French, Italians, etc. including TWO lots of Italian off-road expeditions with well-equipped Land Rovers. how we envied them!

the roads were terrible weren't they? how the underneath of our car remained intact I'll never know. we did pick up a slow puncture and can now recommend a vey reasonably priced tyre repair place in Reykjavik should you ever neeed one.

we decided that there were 3 sorts of roads -

A roads.

B roads - where the B stands for bloody awful

F roads - where the F stands for... work that out for yourself!

I think that your decision to stay in guesthouses was a sound one. I haven't got to that bit of my T/R yet where we stayed in one, but it was pretty good, and compared to othe options, a reasonable price.

Iceland was not a good place for self-catering as the choice of food in shops was pretty poor. in desperation we ended up eating at petrol stations a couple of times.
for those readers who are Icelandic virgins, that's not as strange as it sounds - lots of them have quite decent cafes attached, and supermarkets, and nice toilets.

which guesthhouses that you stayed in would you particularly recommend?

regards, ann

Hi Ann,

Yes i'm a brit too and enjoyed the fact that 95% of the country seemed to speak english (except the Icelandic Farmer who pulled up in his car at the age of 99 and his sister who helped run the farm age 104). There's hope for us all.

We cheated a bit and went with a small Icelandic Tour Group partly to avoid the driving as I would have done it all and navigated while the other half enjoyed the view or slept!- A good choice in the end as the B and F roads where a nightmare (nice phrasing) and we crossed a few streams/rivers and down tracks I would never have gone if driving. (At one point a 4x4 got stuck in front of us crossing a river - I helped by taking a photo of course (LOL)

We saw a few italians on motorbikes (as my wife kept pointing out!) and met people from the Netherlands.

Although we did come across a few brits and met a Group in Land Rovers who had brought their vehicles from England via the Faroe Islands. We also saw an english caravan - crazy people!

I kept thinking how much damage was being done to all the hire cars we saw and did they have to pay on return?

Yes the petrol stations were almost mini towns. How weird having a supermarket at the back - although lets not get onto the prices.

We stayed in the following Guesthouses (In some cases called hotels but not as we know it); -

Hotel Hlid near Hveragerdi (4 nights) - I would give it 3 out of 5 and would recommend it.

Hotel Dyrholaey obviously near Dyrholaey (3 nights) - 4/5 out of 5. One of the biggest places (55 rooms) but excellent food and english TV!

Hotel Framnes, Grundarfjordur (2 nights) - OK but rooms and food portions too small. Probably 3 out of 5 again but would look for other accommodation first and couldn't cope with more than two nights.

Guesthouse Ongulsstadir (4 nights) about five minutes from Akureyri. Again probably 3 out of 5. A bride arrived for a night of passion on our last night (we got the room next door!)


Looking forward to your next installment.

Hi again, Ted,

we thought about groups, but DH is allergic to group travel and DS has ADHD [in remission but still a factor] so it's not really an option for us.

and we enjoy the planning phase almost as much as the travelling. [sometimes more!].

I'm interested in the places you stayed - i found the Hotel Framnes on the net and thought about booking it, attracted by the fact that one of te howners is British but we decided to opt for the [disastrous] cottage of Kverna - glad we didn't from what you say.

and i never saw anything about the hotel Dyroholaey when i was planning, though we did drive past it. Sorry we missed it, from your acccout. What did you go and see while you were there?

I remain puzzled about the food. I cannot believe that ordinary Icelanders exist on the sort of fare that we found available, especially further away from Reykjavik. in the supermarket in grunavik, they had no fresh food [meaning meat, poultry, fish] and little fresh fruit or veg available at all.

do you have an answer to this?

so far we haven't heard that they want to charge us for damage to the bottom of the car. although it was very early when we got to the aiport, [6am] there was still someone there to check it over, and she didn't say anything about finding damamge and so far as I know, we didn't so any.

we weren't allowed to go on F roads, [don't know how much worse than the B roads they could have been] under the terms of our insurance, and I think that this applies to nearly all rental cars in Iceland. Therefore no fording rivers, thank goodness.

We both drove, and navigated, with varying degrees of success. some of the roads round the sides of the fjords were really hairy, and there was one moment when I suffered a loss of confidence whilst reversing apparently inexporably towards a cliff-edge, and had to hand over to DH to get us out of the trouble I was getting us into.

I suufered some loss of face, but who cares so long as you're safe? driving there is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

more of the T/R proper tomorrow.

regards, ann

Hi Ann - Well this is a refreshing trip report if ever I read one!
And just when I was thinking of going there........................!
Looking forward to the rewarding finale`!

Ann, your report is so wonderfully descriptive of Iceland that now I don't ever have to go! As always I love your style of writing and your sense of humour.

What a treat to picture you eating cucumber sandwiches in Iceland, so quintessentially British. Made from homegrown cukes self-imported, to boot. Cucumber sandwiches are one of the many English things my Liverpool born grandmother introduced me to as a child. I still carry thinly sliced cucumbers along in a baggie to be added to sandwiches at the last moment - to prevent sogginess - when we travel by car.

DAY 3 - up, up and away!

to continue the "warts and all" vein, this was the day when perhaps our lack of forward planning most let us down, though to be fair, it wasn't all our fault.

the weather dawned bright and sunny again [is this Iceland, really - yes sadly it was, as we disclovered later] so Plan A went into operation. we breakfasted on our supplies of cereal and toast, made cucumber sandwiches [just cucumber for DS, butter or "smyr" as it's called in icelandic, excuse the spelling, and cucumber and cream cheese for me and DD - all in separate bags, talk about a palaver] and set off to walk the porsmork valley, described by the lonely planet people as one of the most beautiful places in Iceland.

it should have been only a short drive away - however, we discovered that contrary to the roads laid out on both our maps, it was NOT accessible from the road that went past our summerhouse, and that the only other way in was via an F road which we couldn't use.

all that driving up and down had left us very grumpy and nearly out of petrol, so we had to drive back up to Hvollsvollor to get some. on the way, I was idly reading the LP guide, only to discover [how had i missed this] that there was a bus to Porsmork from the petrol station at HV at 10.30. Ideal. what time was it now - 10.45.

Lets' go to the information office, DH says [don't ask why we hadn't gone there first, I can't tell you] so we did [it's in the SAGA centre, HV being an important centre for people exploring the Njal's SAGA sites], and got a local map.

BTW, there was a distinct lack of local maps and information in nearly every place we stayed - Iceland requires tourists to be VERY proactive, which we gradually got better at being, but by then we were nearly home.

there were a number of local walks indicated, but what DD really wanted to do, [and so did I] was to go to the Westermann islands to see the puffins, which we had been told you could get to by small plane from a local airport.

After the miles and miles we'd driven yesterday mainly at his behest, DH couldn't really grumble at this, so after a quick phone call to check we could go, we were off to Bakki airport to catch the plane.

What we had not reckoned on was
a) the weather changing and becoming distinctly wet, and
b) that this was the beginning of Iceland's main holiday weekend, when there are a number of impromtu parties all round the country, the biggest one being on, you've guessed it, the Westermann islands. however, having got ourselves to the airport, and stood around waiting for someone to appear whilst watching the antics of some seriously drunk youths [it turned out there were all out flying people back and forth] we were determined to do SOMETHING. so we signed our names on the passenger sheet [the only formalities, no passports and suchlike required] and jumped on certainly the smallest plane I had ever been on -a nine -seater.

and we were off!

[got to go and cook supper now, back later!]

right, I'm back.

i wonder if there is anyone who doesn't feel just a tiny bit nervous when the plane they're on takes off. our housesitter spent the whole of the journey to the aiport, to which she kindly gave us a lift telling us how nervous she felt just driving there! Me, i tell myself that the pilot wants to live as much as I do. the mood was helped by our jolly companions [as jolly as newts, most of them] who seemed intent on drinking their weight in beer even before they got there. the icelanders don't drin koften, but when they do, they do it seriously.

we landed almost before we'd taken off, so short was the journey, and to our surprise found a modern and bright airport building with proper arrival and departure areas - not like the huts we'd taken off from. but information was hard to come by - how to get to the rest of the island, for example.

the island in question is Heimaey, the only inhabited of the 15 islands, which were formed by volcanic action about 11,000 years ago. all except Surtsey which was created by an eruption in 1963, and is not allowed to be landed on in order to see how it develops.

so we walked along the road out of the airport, and tried, with the help of our trusty guide-book, to work out where to go. ideally we wanted to walk to the top of one of the two volcanos, one of which, Eldfell, first appeared during a serious eruption in 1973, spewing out 30 tons of lava and burying a numerous buildings. however we were foiled by two things - the weather, which was now blowing a real hooley, and a total lack of visible footpaths; though we could see people up on the top, we couldnt' for the life of us work out how they'd got there.

At least it had stopped raining - time for lunch. so we sat on our coats on the black sand flanks of the volcano, and ate our cucumber sandwiches, plus some rather manky apples we'd bought, gazing down upon the lava fields over looking the town and harbour below. Though we could see it, walking down to it was not a piece of cake, and we ended up picking our way through the town dump before we found ourselves in the area known as pompeii - the part of town where the houses were buried in lava and are only now being excavated.

looking round for something to do, we came across the aquarium and town museum, which is a great place if you want to see all the sea and coastal birds of Iceland neatly labelled and stuffed. at least the fish in the aquarium were alive! after that, we needed a drink and a loo stop [in icelandic "snyrting"], and found that as usual, the best place in town was the largest and best hotel, where we enjoyed some much needed coffee and hot chocolate.

sitting comfortably in their large comfy sofas, I was reading the guide book again, and spied mention of boat trips round the island at 10.30 and 3.30. you will be even less surprised than i was that we were too late for this too, and as my family are quite keen on such trips, on a need to know basis, I decided to keep what I'd just read to myself. so we wandered around in a desultory fashion for a bit, gradually realising that the likelihood of us seeing any puffins or indeed anything else was pretty remote. There really wasn't a great deal to see or do in the rain, though it wasn't dampening the spirits of all the party-goers who were being transported to their destinations in the back of large lorries. we didn't see any of our friends from the airport again, not even the chap with the builder's kilt [a heat-wave present to him from his boss apparently, complete with special pockets for his bottle opener and screwdriver!]

so we trudged back up the 3kms to the airport, and signed in for the flight back. did I say that on the way out it was the smallest plane I'd ever been in? - well that was true, until we got in this one. room for just 4, plus the pilot. thank goodness I'd been on that diet. taking off was fun - the airstrip on Heimaey ends where the land does - so if you overshoot, you get wet. fortunately we didn't, and within 10 minutes we were back on "dry" land. [actually rather wet land, as it was raining hard by now].

did we see any puffins? - no. [well we did, a stuffed one in the museum.] did we have fun? - sort of. were we wet? - YES.

supper ended up being a pizza in the galleri pizza back in HV. we're a bit picky when it comes to pizza, so we should have known better. thin, crisp, with simple topings like ham and mushroom are tops with us. thick and gooey with chicken and pineapple don't hit the spot, though they seem to be popular with icelanders. Fortunately, you could have a simple marguerita and choose your own toppings, and though the price at about £10 a pizza was a bit steep, the size could not be faulted. so much so that we went home with a very large pizza box stuffed to overflowing.

tomorrow - we encounter the "Thing".

I am loving every minute of this. I'm in the US, so love the expressions you use, and LOVE your sense of humor! Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the great report. I think I'll skip Iceland...

What a delight! Will be on tenterhooks until the next installment.

V.

Hi Ann. It sounds like a struggle for you on your first few days so hopefully things improved later in the week.

Just to re-assure those thinking of visiting Iceland we had a brilliant time and a must see Country just with the right vehicle and enough time. I know we cheated with the tour group but your experiences to date were our fears and it seems we got to all those places off the tourist routes with our local guide and all terrain minibus. Maybe a consideration for anyone else planning the trip in the future.

To answer your questions:-

From our base at Hotel Dyrholaey on day one we: -
a) Visited the Seljalandsfoss waterfall (the one you can walk behind - what a feeling and escaped not getting too wet) We then walked around the area and finding a pallet someone had left climbed the rock face to peer over the edge of a waterfall - what a frill)

From here we continued down the 'F' Road (hearts in mouths has we crossed 3 fords before asking our adventurous drive to please stop at the fourth - the one were the 4x4 got stuck)
Here we were at the foot of a glacier - Wow. Apparently retreating at the rate of 2m per day (yes thats right) and we don't have global warming?

Having lunch (no cucumber but ham and cheese sandwiches) at the foot of glacier in the sun (bizarre).

Then it was back along the F road before a sudden stop as the guide said we could walk from here to place he went as a child. So off we set on a random trek before reaching a gorge and in we went. Scrabbling over rocks and paddling through streams we enter the most amazing place where ropes had been attached to climb the falls so you could see the best bits hidden away - Possible one of the best experiences I've ever had.

b) Our second day from here was the long drive to Jokulsarlon for the Iceberg trip (we also opted not to try the freshly picked ice!) - But the Icebergs were one thing I wanted to see and worth the travel time.

We also visited Svartifoss (another waterfall - but very different and a lovely walk to reach it)

On the way back we stopped off at Nupsstadur (a turfed roof church) where we met the 99 year old farmer).

Have to go now Sunday lunch beckons but will continue later.

Hi y'all,


yes, Ted, your trip certainly proves the worth of the RIGHT organised group trip - who did you go with? fortunately things did look up, as i hope to illustrate. i still can't get over the fact that we both drove [or were driven] all that way to the glacial lagoon and back. i reckon [for us and not much less for you] a 400km round trip.

the one thing i would do differently is a round island trip, rather than what we did. all right we would have missed the western fjords, but I suspect we could have found other places equally good, and not have been retracing our steps so much.

to anyone still contemplating a trip to Iceland after reading this [and I urge you to read all of it, not just the juicy bad bits], it might be an idea of get hold of the brochures published by the Iceland specialist holiday companies like discover-the-world.com and see where they go and how long they spend there. i certainly wish we'd taken more notice of their suggestions.

hi, tod, moolyn, challiman, marija, virginia [apologies if I've missed anyone out] - thanks for your kind comments. it wasn't that bad, honest. some bits were REALLY good. but there's no point in posting if you don't tell it warts and all, is there?

hi again, Ted - my kitchen beckons as I've got to COOK sunday lunch. or in our case, dinner.

day 4 coming up soon.

regards, ann -

or as they say in Iceland,

Bless.

Very enjoyable, thanks annhig!

After reading every book that Dick Francis wrote, I have always wondered what "teaching your grandmother to suck eggs" means. Now I must add "bit of a curate's egg" to my list of unknown things about eggs.

Please help!

Hi Ann, Back from Sunday lunch at the local. Can't beat a good old carvery (Enjoyed even more having been to Iceland)

Your right about choosing the RIGHT company we saw too many coaches with 30/40+ people all fighting to get off for a quick photo and then back on again. I couldn't imagine a worse holiday. You've actually mentioned the company we booked with although the tour was actually run by local company Iceland Naturalist.

On our last day from our base at Dyrholaey we walked to the Myrdalsjokull Glacier. All wrapped up warm we eventually walked through the clouds and stripped to T-shirts in the baking heat (The ever changing climate) - Back down it was fog most of the way and with the rocky ground along with random mini snow/ice fields to cross made for a few falls along the way.

I now feel guilty as we saw lots of Puffins at the Cliffs of Dyrholaey and could get to sit only feet away from them (I hope you got to see them eventually on your trip).

Keep up the excellent trip report as they say honesty is always the best policy.

PS - I would love to know if your tried shark? I must admit it was offerd to us but seeing the faces of those trying it was enough to give it a miss. Or maybe it was the fact that it had hung outside for 4 months curing!

Hi Ted,

glad you had a good lunch. We certainly came back appreciating the range and standard of fresh food that we normally take for granted - those runner beans from straight from the garden never tasted better.

yes, we did get to see puffins - loads of them - both flying out at sea and on the Latrabjarg cliffs out on the tip of the western fjords. i suppose that the closest we got was about 6 feet, which isn't bad.

as for shark, we never even saw it, though I think that it would have been on offer at the Viking feast had we known about it. we did try guillimot - which i wouldn't bother with again -it was rather fishy.

it's one of those dishes that make you ask yourself who it was first thought of eating something that way, and why did they carry on doing it?

Tdudette - hi. a curate's egg is traditonally good in parts - I suppose that comensurate with his lowloy status, the curate would have been the one to get the one that was a bit iffy, without its being actually bad.

as for teaching one's g'ma to suck eggs, the implication is that being a granny she already knows very well how to do it.

I too am a fan of Dick Francis - indeed it's what I was reading all the way home, having found an omnibus edition in our last hotel [memo to self - must send it back!]. there was a rumour that it was Mrs. Francis who wrote them all - did you hear that?

Day 4 coming up.

regards, ann

DAY FOUR

One of the down sides of self-catering [I’m beginning to have problems seeing an up-side at the moment, to be honest, but I’m sure I’ll get over it] is that in more economically-priced establishments, you’re supposed to do the basic end-of-let cleaning yourselves. Fortunately, the summerhouse was no mansion, so it didn’t take much, after we’d packed, to wiz round with the hoover. As we were moving on to a guest house, we weren’t sure what to do with the supplies we’d accumulated and of course, those we’d brought with us, but we packed it all anyway, including what was now just a solo cucumber, rather than just throwing it away, along with last night’s left-over pizza. Waste not, want not!

After DS had done what he kept calling an “idiot check” [until his sister cruelly asked him if he’d looked in the mirror] returning the bed linen and towels to the hotel, it was time to set off for our next stop, blessedly only about 160kms away, and that was with a detour to see one of the main sights of Iceland, the site of the old parliament or Pingvellir, [pronounced “thingvellir” as close as we could get to it]. This is situated at the north end of iceland’s largest lake, and co-incidentally along one side of the fault where the North American and European tectonic plates meet. A real must see, and part of the “Golden Circle” that virtually all tourists to Iceland get taken to at one time or another, as the number of coaches readily testified.

Unlike some people we met later, we managed to find the main information office and café easily enough, and after a restorative coffee, and what we could stomach of the now rather cold and very claggy pizza, we left the car with npt quite all our worldly possessions [including our passports hidden in a suitcase lining, where no-one would ever think to look for them!] right in front of the information office, donned our walking boots and wet weather gear, and set off. Whereas this end of the fault seems pretty small, the further towards the lake we got, the wider and deeper it became, so that in some places, you could walk right along it. It is said to be widening at a rate of at 2-3 mm per year, and we all found it very impressive. After about 2kms, the paths become wooden walkways, there’s a lovely waterfall, and finally the parliament site, which didn’t blow me away but might well have looked impressive if you were a 10th century Icelander. There’s lots of info around there all in english about the site and its significance, and the historical sagas connected with it, including one unintentionally [I think] funny one about how some chieftain came to talk to the “thing”. Well, I found it funny.

The sun had come out and refreshments were now required, and there’s a bit of a Hobson’s choice [unless you’ve brought a flask, which are conveniently supplied in many guesthouses which will fill them as well,] of the hotel at the top of the lake, or nothing. Luckily, most of the lunchers had departed leaving the garden free for us, and as usual, we ordered two large beers – which is just about the right amount of beer for the three of us who drink it [DS being the exception, not because of age, but because he doesn’t like it!]. whew - £8 a pint is a bit steep. We thought that €6 was a lot in Rome – looks like a bargain now. No chance of us drinking excessively here. Nor eating, for that matter as a piece of cake [very nice cake it looked but even so] cost the same as a beer. This is where we were approached by the people who’d had problems finding the info office, and we were able to show them on the map we’d managed to get how to get to the main paths to the waterfall, which obviously worked as we saw them there later.

Then it was time to walk back to the car [about 3km or so], via the beautifully simple little church, the equally beautiful pools where they used to drown female miscreants, and the waterfall, where we picked up the path that goes through the chasm itself, emerging on the other side of the fault. The path then disappeared and we had to walk along the road for a while which was a bit boring, but then it enabled us to see the fault going off dramatically into the hills – great slabs of stone rent asunder by the force of the movement of the earth’s crust. After all that excitement, fortunately the café was still open, and we were able to sample an icelandic speciality – no, not preserved shark or pickled rams’ testicles, but pancakes, sprinkled with sugar, and served cold in every café we came to. And very yummy they were too.

Our next stop was the guest-house Efsta-dal [farmholidays.is no 691] where we were booked for two nights, somewhere between the Thing and Geyser, about 50 miles away. When I had e-mailed to confirm our reservations about a week before we left [probably unnecessary, but it made me feel happier] they had sent us very good directions, so we found it easily, and no problems with it getting dark of course - it never did, all the time we were there! We’d booked two en-suite rooms at about £80 per room per night including breakfast but when we got there it turned out that only one of those was available for the first night, so the kids nobly “volunteered” to go into a room without a bathroom just for the one night. This worked out ok as there were plenty of showers and loos, and the room itself, in the main farmhouse, was clean and quiet though a bit tired looking. And cheaper! Our room was in a brand new block of ten, very spacious with a great toilet and shower room – the standard of bathrooms, even public ones in petrol stations and cafes, was consistently high – and a kettle for making tea, coffee etc. We’d opted for a meal in the guesthouse which was served from 7pm-9pm in the main farmhouse, and was the standard Icelandic fare – soup [leek I think, that was very common] lasagne, fish, lamb, and cheesecake made from Icelandic yoghurt or “skyr” – very good. DD reported that the lasagne was a bit strange. DS managed to finish off what she left with no trouble, and the fish and “muscle of lamb” were excellent, though the decision to serve hash-browns with the lamb when there were nice turned boiled potatoes with the fish was a bit odd, as I could see the French guests at the next table thinking too! For 3 courses plus coffee or tea, it cost ISK 3,000, 3,300, and 3,600 depending on which main course you had – that’s about £22, £24, and £26 respectively]
As we were so close to Geyser we decided that we’d go up there after dinner and have a look. Even at 9pm it was light and after 10 minutes we were pulling into the geyser car park for the first, but not for the last time. The geyser that gave its name to the phenomenon has been pretty quiet for the last few years, but it’s neighbour skogar performs every 7-8 minutes or so, shooting a column of warm water about 100ft into the air. Wow. The first time was quite remarkable, and it just kept on getting better. It was vey difficult to tear ourselves away, trying to anticipate when it exactly was going to go off, and there was quite a lot of others there, even at that time of night. Access to the site is free, and the barriers are minimal – just low ropes to show you where not to go. So you could get really close – close enough to see the water bubbling, sinking swelling, then swooshing [is that a word?] up into the sky. Perhaps not surprising that the hotel over the road had hairdryers in the ladies’ loos.

Tomorrow – wet, wet, wet.

I'm glad you saw the puffins. Don't they fly funny? It was almost as if someone had wound them up and then let them go with the feet and wings flapping around unbelievably quick.

It sounds like the guillimot was as tasty as the shark. Since shark is poisonous to humans I was intrigued to know how they new it was OK to eat after 4 months. (Had 120 people been poisoned until the 121st survived?) - Apparently it smells a lot better after 4 months so that is a good sign! Oh and the flies are kept away by the crust that forms over the shark whilst it hangs (Oh how appetising)

Thanks! Enjoyed the subtlety of the C's egg. Then, does granny paint the empty egg shell?
Yes, I did hear that rumor about Mrs. Francis. Don't think he ever commented. They were interviewed on American tv many years ago and she said they spent the year researching each book's subject together. The most recent, Dead Heat, is co-written with son Felix. Difficult to say, eh?

yep, Tedd, we'd wandered about that too.

Gordon Ramsey got into lots of trouble while we were away, apparently, for eating puffin he caught on Heimay. but it's a lot more understandable than the shark option.

Tdudette - never thought of granny painting the eggs afterwards.

I've been working hard this week so i've been a buit remiss, but I'll get back on the Trip report over the weekend - there's more rain forecast for Cornwall.

regards, ann

I came across this post on the Ireland forum which I'm researching for an upcoming trip. I had to reply as it brought back wonderful memories of a trip I made there with my 85 yr. old mother (7 years ago). I found a small tour co. on the Icelandair website as I wasn't going to attempt driving and don't like "big bus" tours. We spent about 13 days with Bjorn, our young, extremely handsome tour guide and 6 other passengers in a land rover type vehicle. My mother and I had never seen such beauty--and we've traveled extensively! We drove through the middle of the country to northern coast. We stopped at geyser fields in the middle of nowhere. Although we never went to the Blue Lagoon, Bjorn drove up some road (using the word loosely) to what looked like an outhouse on the outskirts of a geyser area. Turns out it was a natural sauna. My mother and one of the other passengers remained in the van, but the rest of us partook of the sauna experience. Exhilarating to steam away and then step outside with the summer 50 degree winds blowing across. Another day along the North Sea coast, we went down a long rocky "road" which deadended at a natural hot tub in the rocks. We spent over an hour, soaking in the tub, a slight drizzle overhead, sheep in the meadow nearby, looking out at the North Sea (when I wasn't nodding off!) in 55 degree temps. You're right about the food being less than stellar, but tins of sardines (which everyone liked), thermos of hot chocolate, cukes, crackers, great cheese seemed to be just the ticket for our daily outdoor picnics in the middle of fields. We never ate in a restaurant--just bought things that day at one of the gas stations. There was never any rush and we covered a lot of the northern and western area of the country. We stopped at a nursery one day, and bought a flat of tree seedlings to replant in one of the treeless areas (most of the country qualifies). Anyone who took one of this companies tours would do this. Erosion is a big problem in Iceland.
Sorry, have probably gone on too long, but such a fascinating country. And maybe it will remain that way as long as peoples' reactions when you tell them you're going to Iceland are "Why would you go there?" !!!

Hi hdjane,

not too long at all- your mother must be quite a trooper. as so few fodorites have ventured to Iceland, i think those of us who have, have a duty to share!

I'd like to say that your reviving this thread has spurred me into more episodes of my saga [pass the pun jar, mum, as my kids say all too often] but i fear that work myst take priority. but I will finish it, promise.

bless, ann

DAY FOUR

After our first guest-house breakfast [a buffet of cereal, cold meats and cheese, hard boiled eggs and as much tea and coffee as you could want plus DS’s favourite hot chocolate] and sorting out some washing that the guest-house owner had very kindly said she would do for us [at least that’s what DH thought she’d said] we set off for the rest of the Golden Circle. Few visitors to Iceland escape this well-trod tourist trail – the Thing, Geysir, and the waterfalls at Gullfoss are the highlights. Yes, I know that we’d done Geysir the night before, but DS‘s ADHD -linked obsessive traits were to the fore in his insisting that we went again [and again!] and after all it was on the way to Gullfoss, wasn’t it?

Luckily the sun was out so we were able to spend another hour or so enjoying the sight of “Strokur” [sorry – got the name wrong yesterday] sending up magnificent columns of water into the sky every 8 minutes or so whilst DH tried to get the hang of his new digital camera. [memo to self – do not buy new camera 1 week before holiday]. So rapt was I that I failed to spot that aforesaid DS had worked his was round to the windward side of the geyser [or do I man the opposite – anyway, you’ve guessed what’s coming haven’t you?] and suddenly there were shrieks [mainly of laughter] as this idiot Brit was soaked from head to foot with warm which rapidly became cold water. So that’s why there’s a hair-dryer in the ladies’ loo in the posh hotel across the road. Regrettably, there wasn’t one in the gents, so DS squelched his way round the rest of the geysirs, and had to sit on a plastic bag on the way up to Gullfoss where he attracted many “admiring” looks.
Fortunately this was another quite damp attraction, so that fact that he was sopping wet was less obvious than it might have been in, say, the sahara desert. That didn’t stop several old ladies who had been at the geyser at the same time as us coming up and asking if he was all right – which was rather sweet of them although I think they just wanted to find out how cross I was!

Gullfoss is really terrific – not quite Niagara but not far off and beautifully positioned so that you can see the double falls of water, one at right-angles to the other, very clearly. A real “must see”. And followed by a real “must eat” in the café whose speciality is lamb soup – which was very good if a bit pricey at not far off £10 a bowl [really not OTT for Iceland] as an American we were standing near was not slow at pointing out. In fact all the time we were in the café I could hear him chuntering outside about how it cost U$20 for soup. $20 FOR SOUP!!!!

By now DS was beginning to dry out, which was a shame as he was due to spend the afternoon Arctic rafting at an outdoor pursuits centre just down the road, if we could find it. [www.arcticrafting.is] As it turned out the finding was not the problem but the road was. It had everything – gravel, potholes, a narrow wooden bridge which looked to be on its last legs, blind hills [like a blind bend but upwards not sideways] and it went on and on for what seemed miles til we got to the centre. The plan had been to drop DS off while we went off to explore the rest of the area, but while we were there, DH talked himself into having a go too, so 6,500 ISK x 2 later, [about £40 each] DD and I were heading off to enjoy a quite afternoon mum & daughter bonding [where are the shops?] while the lads got wet.

But before we could go anywhere, we had of course to negotiate that dratted road again. Where to go? DD had seen something about the Icelandic zoo so we decided to try that first [only because we drove past it as we were pootling along] but it was more a petting zoo than anything and after we’d helped them catch the rabbits that had got out [and probably put them back in the wrong cages] we were back on the road, heading south. Why south? – well, we’d come from the north and we knew there was nothing there, so south it was.

Our first stop was at a little place called Skalholt, just because we fancied a coffee and there was a sign for a restaurant – but what a find. It’s really only two buildings - a modern church built on the site of the old southern icelandic Cathedral, decorated with the most beautiful stained glass and mosaic portrait of Christ, and a hotel/restaurant which doubles as a theological college in the off-season [or is it a theological college doubling as a hotel in the tourist-season?] whatever - it’s called skalholtskoli and we thought it was great. Even better, the sun shone and we were able to sit out in the little potager they had made outside the restaurant. How the herbs and lettuces would fare in the winter wasn’t too clear, but it boded well for the dinner they advertised! There are concerts in the cathedral in the summer too which might be diverting in a country which seemed frankly a bit sparse on the cultural front. [www.sumartonleikar.is] Regrettably my family decide that we were going to be a culture-free zone, but others might be luckier.

The guide-book said that just down the road was a suspension bridge across the river the lads were rafting along, so we went to have a look and discovered that the best view was from the car-park of the hotel overlooking the river. [[email protected]]. Having taken advantage of their hospitality, we just had to have a coffee there too, and were very glad we had – excellent endless coffee [free top-ups after the first cup] and home made cakes. Yum, yum. They advertised a cake buffet on Sundays [sadly this was Saturday] but I’m not sure what more they could offer. There must have been over a dozen types – cream-filled, or fruity, cheese-cakes and sponges, pastries of all types – plus pancakes of course. Although our smiling hostess spoke even less English than we spoke Icelandic, we communicated pretty well, and though I didn’t see any rooms, I suspect this would be a good place to stay, especially if you like cake! And every nook and cranny was filled with “antiques”, so you’d never get bored.

By now, the rafting was due to be coming to an end, so we about turned and headed back to base camp, negotiating that track again, though we found a different, and slightly better route for part of it. Whereas when we’d left them there were only few people around, now the centre was heaving with damp rafters from many different nations, some tourists, and some Icelandic youth having a day out from Reykjavik. And a Lithuanian. All were drinking soup [lamb of course] like it was going out of fashion, drinking beer and enjoying the rafting equivalent of “après-ski”. We felt a bit left out. And very dry!

When we got back to the guest-house, hoping to find the washing done, it turned out that there had been a language problem, and there the laundry-bag was, still full of dirty washing, sat next to the washing machine. As DS was fast running out of clean, or at least dry, clothes, there was no alternative, so guess who worked out how the machine worked and stuck it on to do while were were out at dinner. DD and I had managed to sing the praises of Skalholt sufficiently to convince the boys, so we headed back there to show them the cathedral [just gearing up for a concert but we were allowed a quick peak] and then dinner, which turned out to be a buffet – soup, lamb [again!] and an excellent salad, [the best we had in Iceland, I reckon] and cheese-cake, all for about ISK 2,500 or £17 each – a real bargain for Iceland, and cheaper [and better] than the guest-house the night before. For groups they will apparently produce a banquet based on C18 recipes they have found. If the monks’ menu that was on display was anything to go by, it would be pretty heavy on fish and –you’ve guessed – lamb.

Finally, as it was on the way back, we just had to have another look at the Geysir – yep ,it was still going. DS was bright enough to realise that another soaking would not improve his popularity rating so he stayed clear, thank goodness.

As we were due to set off for the north-west of Iceland the next day, we reckoned we needed an early night, so we headed back for bed. And drying and sorting the laundry out. Ho hum. So much for that early night.

Ann, what a treat to find some more of your wonderful report!

annhig:

Interesting report - thanks for sharing.

Sandy