Today, Scott and I left Reykjavik behind and explored part of what is known as the Golden Circle here in Iceland. When planning the trip, I was worried that our day was going to be jammed packed, and we would fall over with exhaustion by the end of the day. However, I was wrong, and we were able to explore everything at a leisurely pace.
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| The walkway between the fissures. |
We started our day off at Thingvellir National Park (this is the English spelling of it). It is an absolutely stunning area that sits on a tectonic plate boundary. The North American and EuroAsian plates are literally pulling away from each other. There are a couple of different locations where you can see the fissures in the Earth's surface. The biggest has been turned into a walkway that leads down into the valley.
What makes Thingvellir so amazing is that the Vikings used it hundreds of years ago for their parliament. You can still see some of the stone foundations of ancient booths today. The site was chosen because it was at a convenient location for most of the island, had many trees for firewood, and a huge lake with plenty of fish.
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| Thingvallakirkja |
There are many different sights to behold when wandering through Thingvellir. One is Thingvallakirkja, a tiny little church where you meet for free guided tours. Unfortunately, our luck with guided tours did not change from yesterday in Reykjavik. For an unknown reason, the tour this morning was cancelled. I was really bummed because I wanted to hear from a park ranger about the history of the sights we were seeing. Fortunately, there were many plaques and signs all around the park explaining the significance of what we were looking at. Next to the church, is a five gabled house. The prime minister uses four sections of it as her summer residence, and the park rangers use the remaining section for themselves.
The Oxara river runs through the area and creates the Oxarafoss waterfalls. Both are beautiful. The river does create a couple of pools that contain some dark history. One pool was used to drown women found guilty of serious crimes. A fissure nearby was used to burn men, accused of witchcraft, at the stake.
After a quick lunch from the cafe at Thingvellir, Scott and I hit the road and headed to Geysir. Of course, with a full belly, warm sun, and lull of the car ride, I had to have a short nap. Geysir is home to the famous Iceland Great Geysir. The original is currently going through a time of lessened activity. It is believed that the Great Geysir was active for 800 years or so. It used to shoot water 80m into the air. However, just a short distance away is Strokkur, another geyser. This one is not quite as big as the Great Geysir but still very impressive.
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| Scott and I in front of the Great Geysir. |
Strokkur was going off every 5-7 minutes while we were there. It was a lot of fun to watch. There were a number of small pools surrounding the Great Geysir and Strokkur. There were warning signs all over the place not to touch the water because it is boiling hot.
Our last stop of the day was at Gullfoss. This is Iceland's most famous waterfall as it drops 32m. The first drop is 11m and the second drop is 21m. They have built some really nice walkways around the waterfall. There is a deck where you can see pretty much every angle of the waterfall from above. You even feel mist from the falls up above it. There are also stairs leading down to a pathway that goes along side of the waterfall. However, there's still quite a distance between the path and the edge of the waterfall. I'm pretty sure they don't want anyone falling in.
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| A rainbow in the mist. |
There are a lot of rainbows at Gullfoss and we were lucky enough to see them both times we went. Upon getting there, we decided we would go back later in the evening because we were staying right down the road at Hotel Gullfoss. Our hope was that there wouldn't be quite as many tourists around. Thankfully our second trip was much less crowded. We are hoping that tomorrow we don't run into as many crowds as what we did today since we'll be moving farther from Reykjavik and the Golden Circle tours that are advertised on every street corner.
Today, Scott and I left Reykjavik behind and explored part of what is known as the Golden Circle here in Iceland. When planning the trip, I was worried that our day was going to be jammed packed, and we would fall over with exhaustion by the end of the day. However, I was wrong, and we were able to explore everything at a leisurely pace.
After a quick lunch from the cafe at Thingvellir, Scott and I hit the road and headed to Geysir. Of course, with a full belly, warm sun, and lull of the car ride, I had to have a short nap. Geysir is home to the famous Iceland Great Geysir. The original is currently going through a time of lessened activity. It is believed that the Great Geysir was active for 800 years or so. It used to shoot water 80m into the air. However, just a short distance away is Strokkur, another geyser. This one is not quite as big as the Great Geysir but still very impressive.
Our last stop of the day was at Gullfoss. This is Iceland's most famous waterfall as it drops 32m. The first drop is 11m and the second drop is 21m. They have built some really nice walkways around the waterfall. There is a deck where you can see pretty much every angle of the waterfall from above. You even feel mist from the falls up above it. There are also stairs leading down to a pathway that goes along side of the waterfall. However, there's still quite a distance between the path and the edge of the waterfall. I'm pretty sure they don't want anyone falling in.
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