Green Iceland

It is said they named Greenland “green” land to encourage people to go there and Iceland “ice” land to keep people away.
Don’t stay away. Iceland is very green. And very, very beautiful. It has some of the most diverse landscapes you can find – volcanoes, glaciers, lava fields, waterfalls, mountains, exploding geysirs and natural geothermally heated pools.

To make sure I saw some of this natural beauty before I left I joined a half day tour (called the Golden Circle Afternoon) that would take me to some of the key sights. After a drive through the rolling green hills, past grazing Icelandic horses and stone farmhouses we reached our first stop, a lookout point with a beautiful view of a river and church. So pretty, like something straight out of The Shire in Lord of the Rings.

Our next stop was Gulfoss – the “golden” waterfall. It would be very hard to explain the scale (and beauty) of this place so I will let my photos do the talking on this one. I climbed all the way to the top and should point out that there are no barriers, only “Icelandic fences” (i.e. ropes) protecting you from the water’s edge.

After feeling the cold spray of the falls, I decided to have a warm bowl of traditional Icelandic stew of vegetables and lamb in the visitors centre café before we headed on to our next destination – Geysir. All geysirs happen to be named after this particular blow hole which is called Geysir. Surrounded by several other smaller blow holes, Geysir is really something to see. Every 5 -7 minutes or so, boiling hot water blows up a good thirty or forty feet in the air. I took a video to explain it properly. I hope you appreciate it because I had to stand perfectly still for 5 – 7 minutes in the cold waiting for the water to spurt…

I would recommend this tour (and any of the day tours in Reykjavik) but be sure to get a window seat to see all the beauty in between the destinations – beautiful horses, Hekla volcano in the distance, and the small painted houses in the lava fields for the fairies (or, as Icelanders call them, The Hidden People).