Saturday 4th February 2017
We had decided to book in advance a trip with "Volcano Tours", a 12 hour-day driving journey covering the South coast and the Golden circle. There were four of us in the vehicle so it was comfortable and our driver Hlynur Erlingsson was a charming Icelander who said we could call him"Clint" as none of his clients could pronounce his name. Clint was very knowledgable and eager to share history and folklore on our journey. I was sitting in the front so as the day progressed and the others started to cat-nap between stops, I had the challenge of keeping my ears and eyes open to politely listen to Clint who never seemed to tire of story-telling. It wasn't my only challenge as the stops were short and the other coulee were not really interested in staying long after taking selfies. Ann being an experienced and wonderful photographer capture magnificent shots while I found 10 - 15 minutes more of a challenge!!
We took the main road east from Reykjavik through the mountains of Helliðsheidi plateau and drove along the South coast passing small Icelandic farms all the way to the foot of the world famous Eyjafjallajökull glacier. Clint pointed out that the domestic services were organised in a channel with the sewer at the bottom, the geo-thermal heating pipe and the power cabling above. Houses don't need boilers as each house is supplied from the geothermal source. This includes the half-houses built into rocks.
The Golden Circle Gullni hringurinn is a popular tourist route in southern Iceland, covering about 300 kilometres (190 mi) looping from Reykjavík into the southern uplands of Iceland and back. It is the area that contains most tours and travel-related activities in Iceland. We certainly saw lots of tour buses and many Chinese tourists taking selfies.
We had decided to book in advance a trip with "Volcano Tours", a 12 hour-day driving journey covering the South coast and the Golden circle. There were four of us in the vehicle so it was comfortable and our driver Hlynur Erlingsson was a charming Icelander who said we could call him"Clint" as none of his clients could pronounce his name. Clint was very knowledgable and eager to share history and folklore on our journey. I was sitting in the front so as the day progressed and the others started to cat-nap between stops, I had the challenge of keeping my ears and eyes open to politely listen to Clint who never seemed to tire of story-telling. It wasn't my only challenge as the stops were short and the other coulee were not really interested in staying long after taking selfies. Ann being an experienced and wonderful photographer capture magnificent shots while I found 10 - 15 minutes more of a challenge!!
We took the main road east from Reykjavik through the mountains of Helliðsheidi plateau and drove along the South coast passing small Icelandic farms all the way to the foot of the world famous Eyjafjallajökull glacier. Clint pointed out that the domestic services were organised in a channel with the sewer at the bottom, the geo-thermal heating pipe and the power cabling above. Houses don't need boilers as each house is supplied from the geothermal source. This includes the half-houses built into rocks.
We stop at Seljalandsfoss waterfall where Clint said the brave ones can take a walk behind the waterfall as it falls from the very high cliffs. According to folklore tale a girl could propose to her intended behind the waterfall but if he refused it was guaranteed he would get very wet.
The Golden Circle Gullni hringurinn is a popular tourist route in southern Iceland, covering about 300 kilometres (190 mi) looping from Reykjavík into the southern uplands of Iceland and back. It is the area that contains most tours and travel-related activities in Iceland. We certainly saw lots of tour buses and many Chinese tourists taking selfies.
The name Golden Circle is a marketing term that has no roots in Icelandic history.
The three primary stops on the route are the Gullfoss waterfall, and the geothermal area in Haukadalur, which contains the geysers, in particular the Stroker Geyser (Butter churn) and the Þingvellir National Park. The Stroker Geyser continues to erupt every 5–10 minutes o a height of 15 - 30 metres and that avails another chance to take a second photograph!
As the light started to fade we visited Þingvellir National Park (anglicised as Thingvellir). It is a key location in Icelandic history as the oldest existing parliament in the world first assembled there in 930 AD. Þingvellir has for this reason been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its dramatic history dating back to the establishment of the Alþing gives insight into how a Viking Age pioneer community organised its society from scratch and evolved towards the modern world.
The Game of Thrones series was partially filmed in locations such as Þingvellir National Park, Lake Mývatn in north Iceland and near Gullfoss waterfall and Geyser hot spring. Þingvellir was featured in the season's very first episode. Iceland has been a popular filming location, scenes from Christopher Nolan’s epic Interstellar were filmed atop the blue ice glacier Svinafellsjokull in the Skaftafell National Park, which is also located near another favoured filming location: Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajokull.
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