(07/27/14) Golden Circle Tour

Today started off early with an entire day-long bus tour of the "Golden Circle". Our tour started with a visit to Thingvellir, where the Icelandic parliament Althingi was founded in 930, making it the oldest functioning parliament in the world. It is also the place where the slowly diverging tectonic plates of America and Europe meet. We got to stand right next to the American plate. The European plate was 7 km away on the other side of the valley. The water coming out of this area was so pure that our guide told us we could drink it, so we emptied out our bottles and filled them all up.

The tour continued to the beautiful waterfall of Gullfoss, apparently a highlight of any visit to Iceland. It really was a beautiful waterfall and we had been told that it made Niagara look puny but neither of us seemed to get it. Niagara is just positively enormous and we spent a great deal of time exploring the area, going behind the falls in the tunnels, going on the Maid of the Mist, etc. We hiked Gullfoss up high at the top and then down to the middle where the great spillover happens. We were pleasantly misted by the changing winds, but there was not big wow for either of us. The big wow came from me at lunchtime. I ate lamb. Lamb stew. It was hard to make myself swallow after chewing. I really hate meat. George snarfed his up and said it tasted like beef stew. He does not generally like beef stew because it can be fatty, but this passed the test. 

We then stopped at a geothermal area, the spouting hot springs of Geysir and Strokkur. It was smaller than most Frederick County middle schools and since we have been to Yellowstone, we looked at everything, but again, we were not as amazed as we should have been. Yellowstone ruined us. I did get some nice pictures, but we also could not read the signage since it was in Icelandic. 

We visited Skalholt church, the ancient seat of the Icelandic bishops. There was a replica of the ancient churches next to the modern church. Apparently this church gets destroyed every few hundred years when the local volcano blows. George took one look at the church and pronounced it a hobbit house. 

The tour ended with a visit to the Nesjavellir power plant, a geothermal area in the picturesque landscape of Lake Thingvallavatn. This place really makes "green" renewable energy, as more than half of Reykjavik's population gets its energy from the Nesjavellir geothermal plant.

The tour guide had a very thick English accent, but we could follow along for the most part. We were the last ones picked up from the hotel this morning so of course we were the last ones to get to the transfer bus for our tour, leaving us the last two seats on the bus in the very, very back. I prayed I would not get carsick. And get this - the blower vents were not working. We sweated our brains out all day. We were glad every time we got to get off the bus to go explore something because it was immeasurably cooler. Fun, busy day! George's favorite was Gullfoss and mine was the geothermal area.