Waterfalls and Black Sand Beaches

Greetings from Iceland! (not really...we're already in Manchester but I just kind of want to start out each blog post about a different location that way) What a beautiful country. Seriously, go there.

See??? Isn't that beautiful? This is Skógafoss, meaning "forest waterfall" in Icelandic. And it's one of the many natural wonders we saw during our time there.

We began our trip in Reykjavík. We stayed at a hostel called the Capital Inn, and it was quite a charming little place. We had a 4-person room all to ourselves, and although it was about 2 miles from the city center, it was a good base for all our adventures.

We ended up walking about 5 miles our first day, around the sights of the area, downtown, and back to our hostel. Here are a few pictures of downtown Reykjavík:

This was City Pond. It was pretty much downtown and was home to a wide variety of ducks and birds, and was surrounded by homes, cottages, and businesses.

These were just some storefronts and apartments in the heart of downtown, just across the street from a very old parliament building.

This was called Nauthólsvík Geothermal Beach. The water in the pool blocked off is heated naturally, hence the name. There was also a hot tub on the premises, and the whole place was packed with kids. Typical Iceland summer: going to the beach.

For those of you who don't know, Iceland was historically viking country. This was an abstract metal sculpture of a viking ship at a view point off the harbor in Reykjavik.





Reykjavik is a beautiful city, but beyond that there isn't much to do, and due to its lacking in national roads and highways, there is no major public transportation system outside of the main city buses. However, to really see Iceland, you've got to get out of the city by either renting a car or booking a tour. Since tours were a little pricey and we preferred the freedom of time and destination, we rented a car for our last full day in Iceland. We're so glad we did! One of the major tourists outings is what's called the Golden Circle, which encompasses a national park, the site of where the name geyser originated, and a mega waterfall. It wasn't long to drive and very doable by car, so we set out.
                                                                              

       

This was the very first major waterfall we saw this day. It was in Þingvellir National Park, and we just couldn't stop oohing and aahing. We had no idea what we were in for.

Þingvellir National Park is also one of the famous places for viewing the separation between the continental plates, and they continue to separate about 2 cm per year. Here's a picture of that divide. This park was also the site of the very first Icelandic Parliament, which met here from 930 A.D. to 1799.

This was at Geysir Park, a group of geothermal pools, hot springs, and geysers. The big dog, Geysir, is actually the namesake of geysers today.

A geyser called Strokkur erupting. Too cool.

This was the last stop on the Golden Circle: Gullfoss (golden falls). It's a two-step waterfall that drops down into a deep canyon (from the viewpoints you can't even see the bottom, unless you go out on the rock right by the falls and look forward). The sound was deafening. So incredible!




Since Iceland has 24 hours of daylight in the summer, we had enough time to drive to the southern part of the island that's famous for it's black sand beaches and a cool formation that makes the southern-most tip of Iceland. Here are a few more pictures of that drive and what we saw:

 This was down at Vik i Myrdal, a southern Icelandic village famous for it's black sand beach. The fog made it even more mystical...it felt like what I had always imagined Iceland was going to be.

The black sand made the water look dark and threatening, but out in the ocean it was actually a bright teal color.

Behind us is Iceland's most southern tip, Dyrholavegur. The next picture gives a better shot at the famous archway.

Yep, there's that famous arch. We had quite a hike to get to this view, but it was worth it. And look at the water! In our hostel room there was an aerial picture of this but we had no idea where it was, so it was really cool that we actually got to go there.

 This is Iceland's famous Blue Lagoon, a series of mineral pools that are milky blue and naturally warm. Of course, they've turned it into a spa and charge an arm and a leg to use, but we got to see it from around back.

Apparently, sheep are a big thing in Iceland. It's one of their main meats (we had a traditional Icelandic hot dog while we were there that contained lamb meat), and they have a pretty big wool industry there as well. Anyway, they were everywhere. I'm not sure I've seen so many sheep in my entire life.

They were seriously everywhere: in fields, on the mountain sides, fenced in, not fenced in...we saw maybe two herds of cattle during the entire time we were there, and we saw three or four cow crossing signs but none for sheep. They should really invest in sheep crossing signs.



Sorry for a lengthy post, we just had so much we wanted to share with you! Hope you all are doing well. Look for another post sometime in the near future about our time in England!