Early the next morning we picked up Kristina's cousin and best friend Cynthia. She was also thrilled about our adventure and was looking forward to a break from her stressful job and to being able to practice yoga a lot.
Mid morning Kristina's Aunt and Cynthia's Mom Marge arrived. Our group was now complete and ready to start exploring.
After fueling up on coffee we set off for our first site of the day: a troll cave. Kristina and Cynthia looked scared because the troll had caught them, but Marge seemed to smile impishly from behind.
Inside the troll cave we found the Giantess, a creation of the Icelandic children's book author Herdís Egilsdóttir. According to her story, the Giantess has a heart of gold and saves children, in spite of her frightening appearance.
We had some catching up to do, as it had been awhile since we'd seen each other. Marge lives in San Diego, as does Kristina's Mom, Patty and they are very close. Marge shared shared this awesome photo of Patty from her recent birthday. It was great to see how well Patty looks, as she is still recovering from a recent knee replacement surgery.
On July 5th Cynthia's son Julian celebrated his 16th birthday. We love Julian so we wanted to give him a special birthday shout out. He's become a handsome young man.
We had a few days to explore Reykjavik. We noticed lots of sculpture around the town like this cool Norseman. Pete joined the salute of strength and solidarity.
The four of us are all experienced travelers but it was our first time traveling together as a group. Here we are at Restaurant Messinn enjoying lunch.
This is Harpa Concert Hall located close to the sea. The striking facade was created through a collaboration between Henning Larsen Architects and the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson.
This is what the facade looked like from the inside looking out. The shape of the windows are called quasi bricks and are reminiscent of the crystalline basalt columns commonly found in Iceland that we would see in the coming days.
Only the front facade is 3D quasi bricks, but the ceiling and other walls also use the crystalline shapes.
Marge and Kristina were checking out the views of the bay when Pete took this photo.
We went on a very informative tour that took us to all levels of the building.
Up the stairs we went into the main concert hall Eldborg, named for the Eldborg Volcano. The red color was striking. The concert hall seats 1,600.
Both Cynthia and Marge were feeling tired and jet lagged, so we walked all around Reykavik to help them acclimate.
We thought it was a charming place. The population of Reykjavik is about 130,000 people, and it's the largest city in Iceland.
This interesting colorful building dates to 1892, but Reykjavik dates back to the 9th century when the Norsemen settled in the area.
We liked all the cheerful flowers around the town.
The next day we visited Hallgrimskirkja, Reykjavik's iconic church. The statue in front is of Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer who was the first European to set foot on the North American continent. The statue was a gift from the USA in 1930, commemorating the 1,000th anniversary of Iceland's parliament.
In the church we heard an awesome pipe organ recital. We liked the church's plain interior with the gothic ceilings.
After the concert we rode the elevator up the tower to check out the views. From one side we could see the statue in front of Hallgrimskirkja and all the way out to sea.
This closer shot shows the colorful buildings around the town.
Here’s another view of the church. Because it's on a hill, it can be seen from almost everywhere in Reykjavik.
We walked out to the water, admiring the sculpture as we strolled. We read the plaque on this one and saw it was another gift from the USA, this time to celebrate 50 years of partnership dating back to Iceland's independence from Denmark in 1944.
We also really liked this sculpture, Sun Voyager by Jón Gunnar Árnason.
It was fun to be together and exploring near the water.
Pete couldn't resist experimenting with his new macro lens. This time he photographed a dandelion that had gone to seed.
We visited the studio of the sculptor Sigurjón Oláfsson that had been turned into a museum.
This is a photo of the studio probably taken in the 1960s. Originally the building had been a military base during WWII.
There were several of his sculptures outside the small museum.
We noticed a lot of construction and reconstruction going on in Reykjavik. We weren't sure if the bird murals on these buildings would be saved after the remodel.
There were a number of murals. Our favorite was this one entitled Heavy Stones Fear No Weather, a collaboration by artists Wes21 and Onur.
We were curious about this unsigned mural with its masked figures, especially the puffin head in the lower center.
Marge took us out to a nice dinner at Fish Mrkt.
It was fun to eat sitting at a round table, enjoying each other’s company.
The next day we started our road trip around Iceland, mostly on Iceland’s Highway One that is known as the Ring Road. This map with the blue line shows the route of our first week and the places covered in this blog.
We drove to Thingvellir, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for historical, cultural, and geological significance. Yes, it was cold and crowded with tourists when we arrived.
Thingvellir means assembly fields in Old Norse. This was the area where the Icelandic parliament met, starting in the 930 AD. We learned that the government set the laws and doled out punishments here. This was our first of many waterfalls we would see, and we quickly learned that waterfalls make wonderful backgrounds for selfies. Thanks to Pete’s wide angle lens, we could comfortably fit four people into a selfie.
It rained for about half the day. Due to all the rain in the area, we were rewarded with lovely wildflowers.
As we hiked we noticed some volcanic rocks that had ropey, whorled shapes. Later we learned that it's called pahoehoe lava, a Hawaiian word that means something like good to walk on.
The island of Iceland spans two tectonic plates, the North American and the Eurasian. Pete, Cynthia and Marge are in the lowest part of the valley between the plates.
The continental drift is the most obvious here because fissures were created by the two plates moving away from each other. We walked along this fissure for a few kilometers in the rain, rewarded by the unusual scenery.
After our hike around Thingvellir we drove to our Airbnb in Laugarás.
It was too rainy to hang out on the deck, but we did enjoy soaking in the hot tub (not shown, to the left of the barbecue). The tub was filled with geothermal water and cooled with tap water to make it a comfortable temperature.
This house was our most luxurious of the trip, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a huge living room near the kitchen. We were glad we spent two nights here.
For breakfast we sat so we could enjoy the views.
This was what we saw, the River Ölfusá.
First stop on our next day of sightseeing was the Geysir geothermal area. In the distance the Strokker geysir was erupting. We were able to see the geysir several times, as Strokker blows about every seven minutes.
We hiked out to Brúarfoss waterfall. There are lots of sheep in Iceland so seeing styles over fences is relatively common. But this was the first time we crossed one.
Marge is a total trooper and was game to hike out to the falls.
There were nice views along the way and even intermediate falls. The beautiful turquoise water shows it's glacial run off.
The roar of the falls was really loud.
The chartreuse green of the Angelica plant were a lovely contrast to the bright water and dark rocks.
Here's what the Angelica flowers look like super close up.
After hiking 3.5 kms we arrived at Brúarfoss. It was spectacular! Marge said it was one of her top two favorite waterfalls.
We wore our rain gear because it was drizzling a bit.
While we were in chilly and wet Iceland, Pete’s Mom and sisters were in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Here Csilla and Denise took a break after visiting lots of galleries.
Here the two Csillas pose next to a rope of chili peppers. Little Csilla sent it to us with the caption, “Whole lotta Csillis here.”
We refueled with a vegetable tower and salad as an early dinner.
The next day we went to another waterfall, Gullfoss, where the Hvítá River turns sharply to the right and flows down into a wide curved three-step "staircase" and then abruptly plunges in two stages (11 meters and 21 meters) into a crevice 32 meters deep. When we visited it was hard to believe this waterfall freezes in winter.
We visited the Kerid Crater, a beautiful blue crater lake surrounded by red volcanic rock.
Luckily one side of the crater was less steep and there was a path to the bottom.
The next day we visited Urridafoss, which means trout waterfall.
Perhaps it was too early in the season, but we didn't see any trout or salmon jumping up the falls to spawn.
But we did see some pretty wild flowers.
This is Seljalandsfoss, a 60 meter high waterfall.
We put on our rain gear so we could walk behind the falls.
There was some wind, so we got wet in the spray. This was Pete's favorite waterfall.
There are so many beautiful waterfalls in Iceland. Here are Marge and Cynthia with Skogafoss, another 60 meter high waterfall.
We climbed 325 steps up to the top to see it from above.
The Skoga River has nine waterfalls and we all hiked out to six of them. These were Cynthia's favorite waterfalls and it was a beautiful hike.
Marge opted to sit out the last part of the hike, as it got steep and rocky.
But the three of us scampered out to it.
We stayed in the town of Vik, the southernmost point of our road trip. The next morning we visited the beautiful black sand beach nearby.
We drove east and stopped at the Vatnajökull National Park Visitor Center. We learned about bryophytes, a category of non-vascular plants that includes mosses. Would you believe there are 600 different kinds of mosses that grow in Iceland? We saw them growing directly on the volcanic rock.
We also got a recommendation from the ranger for a short hike nearby. Marge had bought herself a walking stick, so she was happy on the hike.
After climbing up, we hiked along the heath, enjoying the views.
Another style to cross, to keep the sheep out of the park.
We all enjoyed the views of the green landscape.
Remember we told you about the crystalline basalt columns of Iceland that influenced the design of the Harpa Concert Hall? We saw our first ones on this hike.
Here the columns are at the bottom on these rocks.
This interesting rock formation is called Kirkjugólf, church floor. It's actually made of basalt too. Here's what a sign said,
"Columnar jointed basalt is formed when lava or magma cools and contraction causes the new rock to split into six-sided columns. Columns always form at high-angles to the cooling surface, where heat loss is greatest, so they are horizontal in dykes and vertical in lava flows and sills. Where the cooling surface is irregular, the columns radiate in many directions. Six-sided columns are most common - a fracture pattern with 120 degree corners is most efficient for stress release. Hexagonal patterns are seen widely in nature, like in honeycombs. "
These goofy girls standing on the church floor pedestal show the jointed basalt stones.
The meadows have lots of colors this time of year, with the dandelions and grasses.
We continued driving east. When we saw a sign for Stjórnarfoss, we stopped for a closer look.
We liked how the waterfall fanned out and looked curved.
Next stop was Fjadrargljufur, a serpentine canyon. It was formed about two million years ago.
There were nice overlook platforms along the canyon, so of course we had to take a selfie.
Here was our view from the platform.
There are several types of Icelandic sheep, some with horns and some without, but they all seem to be extremely furry.
At the beginning of the canyon we could see volcanic stones in the distance covered in bryophytes.
We went for a closer look.
We spent a morning at Vatnajökull National Park, climbing up to another waterfall.
This is Svartifoss, black waterfall.
Svartifoss also has crystalline basalt columns. This was Kristina's favorite waterfall of the trip.
Selfie at the waterfall.
Next we headed to Fjallsarlon, an iceberg lagoon for a Zodiac boat tour to see the glacier. They gave us these wonderfully warm jackets with hoods to wear. We felt almost like astronauts.
We took a selfie to show the type of boat we would ride across the lagoon in. In the distance is the retreating Vatnajökull glacier.
The lagoon and the glacier are in the national park, which became a UNESCO site earlier this year.
We got quite close to the glacier. It was about 30 meters tall at its highest point. The blue color is from the interior of the glacier, and as it calves, icebergs fall into the lagoon.
Behind Kristina is a floating iceberg, how appropriate.
After lunch and at nearby Jokulsarlon Bay we could see more icebergs floating out to sea.
Often times parts of the icebergs wash up on Diamond Beach.
Here's a cute photo of Cynthia atop a beached iceberg.
It was cold, but Marge and Kristina wouldn't have missed this sight for anything.
These sheep were on the road as we drove up, but they quickly went to the side.
We had to stop for this cool waterfall named Folaldafoss.
We've had lots of adventures in our first week in Iceland. In the next blog we'll complete the Ring Road.
