An Englishman's guide to Iceland - Things you need to know

Here are 8 things you really need to know before you visit Iceland

1) The duty-free shops do not sell frozen peas - In November last year the Icelandic government launched a legal case against Iceland the supermarket re their use of the word Iceland. This was probably prompted by large numbers of distressed British tourists at Keflavik airport.

2) The duty-free shop does sell gift packs of Icelandic Cod Liver Oil if you have a friend or relative who's a bit sickly.

3) Ski wear for pigs, the next big thing - When the Vikings first travelled to Iceland from Norway they brought with them horses, sleep, cattle and pigs. However the pigs all died and so did the next lot and the next lot until the Vikings realised they simply couldn't adjust to Iceland. Consequently pigs in Iceland are reared indoors. So if you are looking for an idea to appear on Dragon's Den - try ski wear for pigs.

4) You can't commute by tractor - To help keep traffic flowing in Reykjavik, the city authorities have banned the use of tractors between 0730 & 0930 in the morning and 1530 & 1830 in the afternoon. This might be forward thinking and environmentally friendly but please, could you imagine if they stopped us going into to London each day on our Massey Ferguson's? There would be a riot.

5) No energy guilt - All Iceland's energy is green - hydro, wind and geo-thermal. In fact they produce more energy than they can use and have no real way of exporting it. Therefore you can leave your TV on standby and your lights on without feeling guilty.

6) There are no bees naturally in Iceland although there are some bee-keepers who keep them for a hobby.

7) Because of point 5 vast greenhouses are able to produce tomatoes, strawberries etc. However, because of point 6 they have to import Bumble Bees to do the pollination.

8) They love to show you the provenance of your food here, so it's quite normal to take you out to watch whales or puffins and then to offer them on a menu.

Item 5 - A wild duo of lightly smoked puffin ......... straight out of Masterchef that one!

ICELAND - There is ice in Iceland

It's adventure day 3, the groups are getting smaller and the weather is getting better. 15 degrees of warmth, no wind and clear blue skies - not only was it warm enough to take your coat off but you could take your fleece off too!  Today I joined 12 other people and a guide for a full day tour (12 hours) of southern Iceland. This gave us 3 waterfalls, a famous volcano, a black volcanic beach and a walk on a glacier. 

We drove about 1.5 hours from Reykjavik and the first part of the day was all about getting wet. At the first stop our guide took us through a cleft in the rock and we found ourselves in a cave with a hole in the roof and a waterfall flowing though that hole. This was Gljufrabui. 

After taking photos and generally getting wet we came out of the cave and walked 5 minutes along a path to another waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. This one had the thrill of being able to walk behind it - provided you were prepared to get wet of course. I do hope you are all taking note of the sheer effort I'm going to, to bring you good pictures! 

 

 

Waterfall number 3 was Skogarfoss, again providing close encounters and a drenching and also because of the sun, great rainbows.

The lunch stop was a picnic on a black volcanic beach - picnic on the beach, in Iceland? There is no beach culture here because the sea is never warm enough to swim in and the weather rarely suitable for sitting on one.

The afternoon was spent hiking on a glacier. But first we need a picture of the volcano - Eyjafjallajokull. 

That's because it will explain why the glacier I'm hiking on, is not white like you see in pictures of the Swiss alps. Remember Eyjafjallajokull grounded all the fights because of the thick cloud of ash it produced. This is formed when the hot magma hit the cold icecap. Whilst a load of the ash travelled towards mainland Europe, a large amount of it fell on Iceland too so the glacier I hiked on was a mixture of ice and ash hence the colours.

The glacial lake in this picture with the icebergs did not exist 20 years ago as this area was covered in ice - it is a result of the shrinking of the glacier.

The guides are only allowed to take 12 people on the ice each and as I was the thirteenth in our group, I had to join a group with another guide and meet a few more new folk - once again the guide was excellent. We had harnesses, crampons, helmets and ice axes and basically climbed on the ice for an hour or so. All good, rather dirty at times given the ash, fun.

 

I'm not going to try and make out that any of the stuff that I have done in Iceland has come cheap. It hasn't. The tours I have done have cost hundreds of pounds, but my advice to anyone coming to this beautiful country is to look at what's available and if there are things you want to do, then do it. This is one of the best countries in the world for doing this sort of stuff and there is so much I haven't done. Reports I have heard from people who have been out whale watching for instance have been very good.

ICELAND - Into the volcano

Adventure day 2 and big stuff happening today. Only a group of 20 of us this time so much smaller than yesterday. We were taken by bus up into the hills behind Reykjavik (ancient volcanoes) and then hiked for about 40 minutes across the lava field to the base camp. 

There we put on harnesses and hard hats and were split into groups of 6/7 before continuing up this dormant volcano - Trihnukagigur. 

We were assured that it had not erupted for 4500 years so I don't really know the difference between dormant and extinct but I guess no volcano in Iceland is truly extinct.

At the top we got into a metal cage to which we were attached with our harnesses and then lowered into what was the magma chamber of the volcano. 120 metres 400 feet below. You stay there for around half and hour before coming back up again. It's only about 4 degrees Centigrade and quite damp. 

The colours on the walls are all superficial mineral deposits. Scratch at the surface and you would just find black rock.

The weather today has really picked up, so once back in the city I went up to the top of the Hallgrimskirkja tower and can now bring you the promised pictures of Reyjkavik.

ICELAND - This is why you come to Iceland

Adventure Day 1 has been a trip to Geyser, Gullfoss and Thingvellir commonly known as the Golden Circle, this is the trip that everyone does in Iceland so we were a large group on a double decker coach. 

First stop was Geyser which since it gave it's name to geysers all over the world means it was a geothermal area with a geyser. I hope this set of photos demonstrating what happens when a geyser blows does it justice.

 




Very little wind today. Given it's boiling water - don't stand down wind!

All sorts of bubbling pools were nearby

Most hot water in Iceland comes from geothermic sources and is piped into peoples homes just like the cold water is. Consequently the hot water has a distinctly sulphurous smell most noticeable when taking a shower.

Next came Gullfoss, which is a magnificent waterfall

And finally Thingvillir. This is a national park in the rift valley formed by the pulling apart of the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The plates are moving apart by 1cm in each direction each year. This was the site of the original Icelandic parliament that met in the open air in the rift valley. The big wall of rock in the photo is the edge of the North American tectonic plate.

ICELAND - Number 50 - I'm here!

If you allow me to count the constituent parts of the UK separately as they do in football and add in a couple that no longer exist i.e. Yugoslavia, then yesterday when I touched down in Iceland I arrived in my 50th country. After a very nice flight from Norway, Iceland greeted me with a bumpy landing, grey skies, wind and rain. The wind means that the showers blow through quite quickly so you don't really get wet, but of course also means that the temperatures are much lower than what I've been use to recently. 

Moody Weather

The cloud is lifting - gradually!

I have three days of tours and adventures booked here from tomorrow, so today was a rest day pottering around Reykjavik. After the multicoloured wooden houses of Norway (with grass covered roofs is some places) I was quite surprised to find how modern the architecture was in the world's most northerly capital.  There were two buildings in particular that really stood out.

If you want to show the world that you are a modern, progressive, forward thinking city these days you need a stunning opera house or concert venue - Oslo and Cardiff are two amazing examples - and Reykjavik is no exception with the "Harpa" that opened in 2011. Right on the harbour it dominates the city and after having a nose round this morning I decided that it would be nice to attend something there. So this evening I went to see a one man stand up comedy show (in English) called "How to become Icelandic in 60 minutes". It was very good and apparently the one of the main prerequisites of being Icelandic is being able to say EYJAFJALLAJOKULL (the volcano that grounded all the flights in 2010). Actually watching the video footage of newsreaders around the world struggling to report on it was very funny.

The other building is the Hallgrimskirkja a large concrete church on a hill in the centre of the city. Controversial in it's design, you either love it or hate it. I am a fan. The tower is open to the public but I am waiting for the visibility to improve before I go up to take some photos - so watch this space.

 

After a cultural sort of day I'll keep you guessing as to what I'm doing over the next few days but lets hope it gets warm enough to take my coat off.

NORWAY - Trondheim

The principle sight in Trondheim is its cathedral. Scandinavia is not known for its big churches but Trondheim has one that looks as if it has been imported straight from England.

The history comes from St Olav who was a king who later became a saint. He was buried in Trondheim and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage and a big church was built.  A lot of buildings in Norway even today are made of wood, so over the centuries a series of fires in the city affected the cathedral and by the mid 1800's much of the building was a ruin with only part of it used as a church.

As Trondheim cathedral is used to crown the Norwegian monarchs and full independence from Sweden came in 1905, it's role as a national church became more and more important therefore from 1869 right up until 2001 it was restored and rebuilt. With no real records as to what it originally looked like, design influences were taken from cathedrals elsewhere in Europe including England - hence what it looks like today.  Next to the cathedral there is a museum which houses the Norwegian crown jewels.

Trondheim itself is a very pleasant place to wander around with many timber buildings lining the river and harbour.

The weather here this evening I would describe as moody.