Iceland

We have had a fantastic few days in Iceland during the February half term. Our daughter & son-in-law asked us to join them on their return visit and their glowing references for the place were fully justified. We spent the first two nights in the Youth Hostel at Laugarvatn which was very quiet at this time of year and more like a small hotel with self catering facilities. Fully equipped by IKEA and thoroughly into recycling we had the ground floor facilities to ourselves and dined in style in what had once been the village post office, complete with safe and phone booths. From here we were able to visit the spectacular waterfalls at Gullfoss and the steamy geysers at Gesyir – in the rain and ice, but still spectacular. Amazingly, these features are free to visit. In the UK there would have been a ticket booth and lots of keep off the grass (snow) signs!

On the second day we visited Pingvellir, the birthplace of the Icelandic Parliament. Here the tribes would meet in the summer for the Icelandic equivalent of Highland Games and local council meetings. A flagstaff marks the historic site, but the guidebooks admit that no one knows exactly where it was so, they have made an educated guess. It is also the meeting place of the North American and European tectonic plates – a big rift and huge waterfall where one side is slowly dropping away from the other. Again it was rather wet but we were able to enjoy the spectacle before it started to snow and we headed back to base. In spite of the snow Colin and I were able to walk down to the lake and see the steam puffing out from the primitive natural sauna hut by the swimming pool. Unfortunately a full moon that night put paid to any chance of seeing the Northern Lights but made ideal conditions for our “Peter Pan” daughter and son-in-law to indulge in snow angels and snowman building. The locals were all very friendly and we were amazed when someone drove up from their house to make sure we were OK when we had pulled in to their lane to look at the skyline. We thought they were investigating burglars, but the absence of police generally gives the impression that the Icelanders are a well behaved bunch.

We returned to Reykjavik via the coast road through wonderful snowy landscapes. At Sellfoss we tried to visit the church – much praised in the guide books but very locked. We crossed the river on a relatively new bridge. The original had unfortunately collapsed when two milk tankers tried to cross at the same time. Icelanders are fairly stoic about such things. While we were there we were informed, very matter of factly, that the main (and only) road around the country was incomplete at one point due to being washed away in the thaw. It would be inconceivable for a part of the M25 to be out of action for any length of time! The map in our hire car showed great swathes of central Iceland into which we weren’t to venture – are there trolls and ogres there?

Rosemary and Colin Monk