COPENHAGEN & ICELAND-MAY 27-JUNE 7, 2022- PART 2

Iceland

We bid farewell to Isobel and Nigel and Danny, Iva, Betsey and I headed to the airport for our 21/2 hour flight to Reykjavik. Our driver/guide Agnes met us, and the 25 or so mile drive into the city from the airport took us past miles of lava fields covered with moss and lined with blue Lupine flowers. Looked a bit like the surface of the moon had grown green. We are staying at the Hotel Borg, the oldest hotel in the city which has a nice Art Deco flavor and good rooms. The weather was balmy in the 50’s and Agnes thinks it will be this way all week. We hope!

Iceland’s population is only 345,000 and Agnes mentions it’s slim pickings when it comes to finding mates, but she has a boyfriend. She is a native Icelander and proud of it. We passed a huge aluminum factory which is the 2nd biggest industry here with fish being the champion and tourism third. First impression of Reykjavik is of a ski town with lots of gear shops, souvenir places and that ski-town feeling of a bit of chill in the air but active bustle. There appear to be two main shopping streets which we will no doubt explore. We’re only here for one night this time but will return for a more leisurely visit on our way home

Dinner tonight at Dill was a unique experience. It was about a seventeen course tasting menu of little esoteric morsels. Too precious really for the four of us. And shockingly expensive per pound of food. What was almost worse was the painstaking way in which the waiter described in nauseating detail each morsel (eg. “Brined in seawater and ocean salt for seven weeks, then dried in the sun”) Nevertheless, we were good soldiers and went through all courses, many of which featured rhubarb which seems to be a big deal here. Can’t really say we enjoyed it. We walked back to the hotel, marveling at how light it is. I write this at 10:30pm, and it’s still very bright out. In summer they get only about four hours of darkness each day and in winter four hours of light.

Next morning, I actually got to go to a gym for a decent workout-first time since we’re on the road and then had a good buffet breakfast adding all the calories back. Agnes picked us up and first thing on the list was shopping. Did some good damage in some fine craft shops and walked down the main shopping street which is mostly pedestrian with colorful patterns in the street and even hop scotch. Pedestrian streets are so much more hospitable and conducive to business. I wish the west side of Stamford would get that message. Having worked up an appetite the four of us jumped at the chance to have pizza for lunch—something nice and simple that we know.

After lunch we visited what was the first museum in Iceland, created by the artist Einstein Jonsson who it seemed to me had a fascist bent. He designed the museum which smacks of brutalist architecture, and his plaster casts play off Viking themes and what to me seemed like Italian fascist monumentalism. It was time to head into the countryside.

Our destination was the Hotel Grimsborgir, our home for the next two nights. We drove through more lava fields and past snow-dotted mountains. There aren’t a lot of old trees in Iceland since the Vikings took them down to build boats, but there are stands of pine and birch. Our hotel is very comfortable, and I topped off the day with a dunk in the outdoor hot tub as the sun came out for the first time today. Dinner at the hotel was benign.

Friday dawned with light rain. This is a big day for us—the Golden Circle- a motor route to see some of the most important sights in the country. So far we have been in the lowlands, along the coast which represents 25% of the land mass but 100% of the population. The highlands are volcanic mountains, glaciers and barren land. As we drive deeper into the low lands the typography changes as there are more trees, mostly birches and evergreens and newly planted Alaskan Aspens. Our guide for today is Siggy, a big Icelander (most of the Icelanders are Viking size) who is a chemistry/biology teacher, mountain rescue leader and guide. He comes in a huge Ford custom vehicle on a truck chassis with a half truck body welded to a Ford Expedition end. A beast to get us through any rough spots. It is raining lightly and chilly. We are dressed appropriately.I feel like I am in Wuthering Heights.

Our first stop is in Pingvellir National Park where the tectonic plates of Europe and America meet. Actually there is a fissure maybe half a mile wide and a glacial lake in between. It’s pretty stunning to see the actual sharp edges of the plates several stories high and knowing that you can easily drive from America to Europe in a matter of minutes. This World Heritage Site is also where the first parliament met beginning in 930AD out in the open to verbally pass laws (no written language then) and pass judgements on individuals. Thirty nine Viking families from Norway first settled Iceland in 874AD, and eventually chieftans divided the land and took control. If you crossed them or did some bad thing, a woman would be put in a potato sack and thrown in the river until she drowned. Men had a more merciful death by having their heads cut off. These were Vikings after all.

Eventually Norway bribed the Icelanders with promises of food and wares to come under the Norwegian flag, but later when Denmark invaded and took over Norway in 1537, Iceland became a Danish territory. It wasn’t until 1944 when the Nazis invaded Denmark that Iceland declared its independence.

Our next stop was a geo thermal site known as Haukadalur where we find the geyser Geysir which was active for 10,000 years and where the name geyser comes from. It no longer geyses but just bubbles and steams. Next to it is a geyser that goes off every five minutes and shoots pretty high. I was pretty pitiful trying to get a video of the thing and get my timing right. I sort of succeeded. With the rain getting harder and colder we opted to skip a picnic and eat at the nearby restaurant/gift shop.

After lunch we headed more into the highlands where you could see the topography change—almost no trees or vegetation because of the very short summers and lots of lava flow around. Incidentally, most of the walking paths in Iceland are black gravel made from lava rocks. The paths are pretty dramatic. We stopped to see Gullfoss, the Golden Falls, which are very impressive and dramatic waterfalls of powerful glacial spring melt into the river. Incidentally, all the river water in Iceland is so pure it’s drinkable.

As we headed back towards our hotel and the lowlands we passed sheep farms and horse farms. Lamb and horses are big deals in Iceland. The horses are smaller and very purebred going back to the Vikings who brought them here. If an Iceland horse leaves Iceland it is never allowed back to preserve the purity of the breed.

The same cannot be said for Icelandic women. It seems the DNA of Icelandic men is about 90% pure Viking, but the DNA of women is much more diverse. The explanation is that the Viking men who traveled all over Europe took local women as slaves and did you know what to them, so the Viking women who came over to found Iceland had less than pure Viking DNA. Interesting tidbit of information I thought. And now that I’ve seen the sheep, I’m going to have lamb for dinner. As it happens, the lamb was pretty ordinary and not wonderful as vaunted by the reviewers.

Next morning the sun was shining and perfect weather for doing the southern coast along the water. The atmosphere is totally different. Yesterday’s rain was actually conducive to the primal sense you had of the topography and history. Today’s sunshine reflects a more upbeat feeling as we pass through bright green fields with sheep and cows grazing, fields of buttercups and lupines run rampant.

We are back with Agnes, our guide, and our first stop is Seljalandsfoss ( I defy you to pronounce it, but the foss part means waterfall), a very high narrow falls coming off a cliff. It’s impressive and some of us walk behind it under a cave-like opening to get a better view and get doused by the spray.

Moving on, I came to the realization that when I told Lucy, my granddaughter, that Iceland is green and Greenland is ice, and she got a kick out of that, I misspoke. There are actually five major glaciers in Iceland and we will get to see four of them. We saw one yesterday way off in the distance, but today we get up close and personal.

We stop along the way to get a good look at another glacier. This one seems massive even though we’re not that close. If you are untutored, you’d think this was just a mountain with a lot of snow on top. But a glacier to be a glacier has to have the snow compacted to suck out most of the air. After admiring this force of nature we headed into the small town of Vic for lunch at a soup place where we had very good lamb soup.

A special treat awaited us after lunch when we visited a black sand beach. Beautiful fine as salt dark lava sand against a backdrop of jagged volcanic peaks with rocks etched by the lava flow that looked like stacks of concrete square columns. The mountain formations all along this road are awesome in their ruggedness and majesty. When juxtaposed against the bright green grasslands that slope up about a third of the way up the mountains, it creates a stunning visual expression of the power of nature.

Our last stop of the day is to get up close to another glacier. This one sits on top of a volcano so it is heavily streaked with black ash. We get close enough to feel infinitessimal against it. That’s a fitting conclusion to a great day, and we head to the Skalakot Manor Hotel for the night in this neighborhood with a glacier just over the hill and a rather good dinner as well.

After a very good and ample breakfast, Agnes picked us up for a leisurely drive back to Reykjavik where we will spend the day. On the fringe of the city we stopped briefly to view the house where President Regan and Premier Gorbachev agreed to end the Cold War.

Very unassuming.

What was really impressive was the Harpa, the city’s Opera House which is more cultural center than opera house. It is stunning modern architecture, not so much on the outside as the interior which has all sorts of geometric glass walls, jagged crystalline ceilings and interesting edged walls. We couldn’t see into the bright red auditorium, but I bet it’s equally impressive.

Back in town we did a little shopping while waiting for a church service to end in the Lutheran Cathedral which looms like a giant clock tower at what is probably the highest point in the city. The interior is quite plain but calming. Betsey and I ventured up into the clock tower (strange for a church isn’t it?—dual purpose) to see panoramic views of the city.

I haven’t mentioned that most buildings and private homes are sheathed in either concrete or corrugated aluminum. Taking advantage of the local industries. A very good lunch at the Sweet Pig with excellent local Viking beer. This necessitated my visit to the Hotel Borg’s gym, only my second time on this trip. I am going to have to double up on my Peloton on our return but not before enjoying a really delicious lamb chop dinner at Grill Market, a very cool spot around the corner from our hotel for our last dinner in Reykjavik.

Our last full day in Iceland is a more leisurely itinerary. We head to the Snaefellsjokull peninsula. This area is north west of Reykjavik and takes about two hours to get there so in order to be fully provisioned we stop at a great bakery (Bread & Co) and pick up scones and cinnamon buns for the road despite the fact that we had an ample breakfast at the hotel. Just out of the oven and delicious. This region of Iceland is characterized by a large glacier (our fourth) and many volcanic mountains with large flatlands studded with lava boulders covered in yellow moss. Our first stop is to gaze at Kirkjufell or Church Mountain, one of the most photographed mountains in the country. It’s quite striking, long and relatively narrow with a flat top and sitting next to the Ocean. Its earliest sediment foundation dates to the Ice age, more than a million years ago.

After a lunch stop we drove into the national park and admired the wide expanses of green valleys, moss-covered lava fields and starkly majestic mountains. This is truly God’s country. We stopped at a dead volcano that had steps all the way to the top.

Betsey, Danny, and I braved the march to take a photo op at the top and a peek in the caldera.

Our last excursion was a climb down to a black sand beach where I took samples for the grandkids. A couple of scenic vistas later dotted with the occasional cluster of small houses or guest cottages, and we arrived at the Hotel Budir, our destination with a nice view of the mountains.

I should mention Game of Thrones before I close. Betsey and I obviously blew it not having watched this series since Iceland is a major location for the show, and Iva and Danny, who are Game of Thrones experts, are over the moon when they learn that Agnes is also a Throner and knows where all the location sites are along our itinerary. At each venue, we got a recital of what happened there to whom by whom, what they wore and what the dialogue was. It’s as bad as Jed and Adam repeating verbatim lines from Top Gun. We just may have to make a commitment to the series when we get home.

At dinner we did “Bests & Worsts”. There was universal agreement that Iceland was a “bests” with the primordial nature of the landscape standing out. What was not appreciated was the really over-the-top prices for meals. It was quite shocking to routinely pay $50-60 for an entree at dinner; $25 for a salad when you could find one, and $25-40 for an appetizer. It’s one thing if the food was superb, but to be honest in most cases it was average at best. And another surprise—the lack of variety in the menu when you get out of Reykjavik. Cod was almost always the only fish except smoked salmon at breakfast. Then there was a single lamb dish, maybe a beef dish and one vegetarian option. Food was definitely a disappointment, perhaps the only one of the trip. -

Well, one more disappointment. Our supposed last day in Iceland we did the three-hour drive back to Reykjavik to spend our last hours at the Blue Lagoon. Now all of us were gun shy about going. We figured it was very commercial and tacky, and the ladies in particular were not enthusiastic about donning bathing suits and messing up their hair. Well, it turned out to be a lot of fun. It wasn’t tacky. The place is quite modern, clean and very efficient. We had a ball. The hot sulphuric waters were very soothing and we had two cosmetic face masks to improve our skin, plus a beer (Betsey-lemonade) while floating in the aqua waters. Feeling renewed, refreshed, relaxed, we headed for our routine quick covid tests so that we could get on our flight home.

It wasn’t destined to be. Much to our shock and chagrin, Danny and I tested positive. “It couldn’t be” we said. We had no symptoms. We insisted on being tested again and had the same results. It was time to call an audible. We put the women on the plane, and Danny and I were driven back to the hotel by Agnes who helped us arrange for PCR tests in the morning. If that is negative, we go home that day. If positive, we are stuck here for five days before we can go home if we are symptom free. What a bum way to end a great trip. More to report tomorrow.

We headed out a 8am the next day with Agnes for our PCR tests, fully confident that the quick tests were a fluke and we’d be going home tomorrow (Thursday). We spent the day taking long walks, a little scone, a little shopping and then I went to the gym. while I was on a Zoom in the early evening, I got the emails that we were indeed positive with the PCR tests. Shit. We immediately contacted Agnes who will see about getting us scheduled to see a doctor on Saturday to get a “fit to fly” letter to go home that day. We commiserated over burgers at the Sweet Pig and headed up to our rooms. No progress but 7 miles of walking today.

Thursday—two steps back, one step forward. Agnes gives me the bad news. Departure day is Sunday, not Saturday based on how they count from the first positive day. The travel people will work to get us the needed get out of jail letter. I eat the half of left over scone and a pear for breakfast; I stop shaving, and out we go. We do 6.3 miles today. We hit Perlan, the planetarium to see the Northern Lights show. It pales after two minutes. We walk through an ice cave. Cold. But it’s a beautiful day, 61 degrees and sunny. Everyone is sitting out in the cafes enjoying the rare weather. We have open-faced smoked salmon sandwiches with Viking beer in the sunshine. It refreshes our spirits. Later, I hear from the travel agent. They are working on it. I try to rebook our flights, but they only speak Icelandic. More work for the travel agent tomorrow. We eat Vietnamese for dinner. It’s actually good.

Friday. Major progress. We will get our Fit to Fly letter Sunday morning and can rebook our flights. A nice lady at the tourist info place suggests we go to the nearby Domestic airport and deal with Icelandair. We do a five mile round trip and hit pay dirt. We butter up a service rep and she gets us on the flight home Sunday. No business class left but at this point we’re ready to go freight. On the way back we stop for lunch at our new favorite—Salka Valka where we ate yesterday. Another sunny, warmish day sitting outside, this time with pizza and Viking beer. We came back to the hotel to watch the replay of the January 6 hearing. Pretty chilling. Dinner tonight was a pub meal at the Bastard. Very good and then a walk about since it’s a beautiful night. The outdoor tables under my window are full and I expect will still be noisy at 2am as they were last night. Total mileage today 6.5 miles. Oh no, as I write this the band in the cafe underneath my room is warming up. I can hear them clearly and even feel their vibrations. Forget sleep tonight.

And the band played on… and on. The band finally gave up sometime after midnight but the partying outdoors continued. I awoke at 4am to hear revelers still going strong outside the nearby American Bar. Whatever. After breakfast, Dan and I set out for the old harbor area, virgin territory for us and the location of Flying Over Iceland, a tourist thing the lady at the tourist office had recommended to us. Since she hadn’t steered us wrong yet, we signed up, and it turned out to be a really good activity. Sort of like virtual reality without the goggles. Great immersion into the topography of Iceland. It was still sunny today, albeit it with more wind and cooler temperatures. We opted to walk back to Salka Valka for another smoked salmon sandwich and enjoyed it and the sunshine for lunch.

A quiet afternoon with an hour’s reading in the sun in the small park opposite our hotel. We walked to our last dinner, a very good meal at Kopar in the old harbor, and did “best’s and worsts” of the quarantine period. Five miles of walking today. The band stopped playing around midnight, but I had to close my window because of the revelers at 3am.

Sunday. Our last day in Iceland. Danny and I took a four-mile walk along the waterfront. It was another sunny, cool day with bikers and walkers out enjoying the day.

Agnes called while we were walking to check up on us. Can you imagine that? She was great, and I recommend anyone coming to Iceland use her. In fact, almost every Icelandic person we came in contact with was very nice—cordial, helpful, proud of Iceland and happy to have us there. After a somewhat esoteric but good brunch at Apotek, next door to our hotel, we headed for the airport. Our driver, another interesting Icelander, talked with us about life in Iceland. We noted how expensive everything was, and he agreed. But he said they get free college, free and good medical care, child care, etc etc. He said people are very happy overall and with the services, and the wages are high commensurate with the cost of living, they get five weeks paid vacation and 24 sick days. I am not a socialist, but somehow these socialist countries are doing something very right and the high measures of happiness confirm it. As I write this we are at the airport where did suffer one final indignity. Although we had a business class ticket, since we voluntarily are flying coach because there was no business class available, Icelandair won’t let us use the business lounge, even when a manager was consulted. So here I sit in the waiting area with free Wi-Fi and eagerly wait for the flight home. I’m glad I had Danny as a companion during our Covid-time since he helped considerably to pass the time. It has been an adventure, I can assure you of that, but I’m really looking forward to getting home to take the garbage and recycling out since it’s Sunday.