Visiting Iceland

After a little bit of problems getting through the check-in counter at London-Heathrow because we had more bags than they allow at that airport we, and our bags, arrived at Leifur Eirikssonar Airport in Keflavik right on time. Our wonderful friends from the SCA, Nik & Martha, were there to greet us and start our trip around the Island. As we departed the airport we got our first view of the type of artistic sculpture we'd be seeing dotting the landscape along our entire journey with a rainbow done in metal work.

From Iceland Tourism

We stopped first for Coffee and Hot Chocolate at Njardvik and passed the time with some pleasant conversation and catching up.

Then we travelled up Route 1 through Reykjavik where Martha went back her way and we kept travelling with Nik. We went under a portion of water through the Hvalfjordur Tunnel which is 6.3 km long.

From Iceland Tourism

The landscape continuously amazed me with the mountains still capped in snow, the waterfalls everywhere you look as the snow melted from the tops of the mountains, the striations in the mountains showing where glaciers grazed them forever ago, the rolling rocky terrain that is actually moss-covered lava flows and the constant sun making everything seem new and bright.

From Iceland Tourism

From Iceland Tourism

From Iceland Tourism

Along our route we passed through what would pass as road construction for Iceland. This disturbed me as the people and the equipment were working on the entire road without cones or control signage and the traffic just goes around them however they can on whatever road the equipment is not blocking.

From Iceland Tourism

We travelled across the bridge at Borgarnes and finally stopped for dinner at Vidigerdi.

From Iceland Tourism

We travelled through Akureyri and past the white tree at Hrafnagil to Nik's house at Skogarsel. The drive North took about 5 or so hours and so we were all exhausted by the time we reached the house. However, that did not stop us from staying up a lot longer and chatting as the sun didn't indicate that it was getting to be close to 1 am since it wasn't any lower than it would be at 8 pm anywhere else in the world. This was the most of the moon that we saw our entire trip and as you can see it is still quite light out.

From Iceland Tourism

We finally all drifted off to our beds to try to find some shut-eye after making a plan to be up around 9 am so we could get some stuff seen before heading to the event.