Speed Sightseeing in the Land of Fire and Ice

The famous Icelandic singer Bjork calls her native country an “emotional landscape.” Indeed it is, and although a proper experience of Iceland requires a lot more than thirty six hours, the long summer days offer a great opportunity for an action packed sample that explores southern portions of Iceland and ends in the capital, Reykjavik.

Iceland, the size of Kentucky, owes some of its stark contrasts-green rolling hills, moonscape, volcanoes, waterfalls, geysers and glaciers-to the coming together and (for the past 10,000 years) drifting apart of the American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Hike this divide, the Almanagja fissure in Thingvellir National Park. The first parliament was formed here in 930 A.D., making Iceland the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy. On Thingvallavatn, the country’s largest freshwater lake, fishing is permitted and brown trout caught here may weigh in at thirty pounds. It helps to like fish in Iceland.

An eruption of the hot spring at the Geysir geothermal field is well worth the wait. Just as I was about to abandon my mission, I filmed a radiant globe emerging from the rocky earth. Gullfoss (“golden water”), a magnificent two-tiered waterfall is an important detour from the journey south and east. Wayward sheep seem to have the right of way on the Ring Road (Highway 1) which circles Iceland. You will also see cyclists, hikers and horseback riders. Isolated for centuries, the small and muscular Icelandic horse is a wildly beautiful pure breed.

High on the list of healthy risks to take before you die is a snowmobiling tour of the Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier. Don’t try this at home! I rode passenger with a speedy and experimental guide. My decision to close my eyes while holding the side handlebars instead of the driver’s waist was the source of some undue fear and muscle pain. On a day when clouds alone made art unlike anything even the native guide had ever seen, it was well worth it. Closer to Reykjavik, the Langjokull glacier offers similar activities.

A guided boat tour of the Jokulsar glacial lagoon offers a close-up of milky white and black and bright blue icebergs that have calved from the Vatnajokull. At 1,000 years old, an iceberg chip is now the oldest thing I have ever eaten! The lagoon, a mixture of sea and salt water, does not freeze on its own but after two weeks of salt water deprivation, it froze over for the filming of the James Bond movie Die Another Day. Moviemakers take note: Iceland could use some additional stimulus dollars!

Near the southernmost tip of Iceland in the village of Vík í Mýrdal, there is a beach not to be missed. With its organ pipe basalt columns, the Halsanefshellir Cave provides a unique photo opportunity as do puffins leaving their rookery for food. A perfect marriage of sea and earth, of green and blue and black, this is a perfect respite before a night in Reykjavik.

If you visit Iceland, you may be teased about trying hakarl (putrefied shark) and Brennivin. Direct translation: burning spiritus. Locals dissuaded me from trying both, but some Americans I ran into in Reykjavik bought me a shot of Brennivin, also known as “Black Death.” At forty percent alcohol-by-volume, I was happy not to be fond of it! I left the experience of hakarl to my imagination and to those who describe it as ammoniac. For food that actually tastes good, visit Vox restaurant in the Hilton Nordica. Later, a drink at Perlan offers rotating views of the cityscape and ocean as the sun makes its momentary retreat.

Were it not for the Icelandic being spoken in the background, and the occasional young man with experimental (checkered blazer over t-shirt) fashion sense, I would have thought Vegamot was a bar back home. As the night progressed and I learned more and more about my Icelandic contemporaries, the next morning’s tourist forecast looked pretty bleak. There was just no way I could have visited the Saga Museum, the Blue Lagoon, and taken a tip-only bike tour of the city all before my reluctant return to the states the following afternoon.

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Tags: Bjork, Blue Lagoon, Geysir, Gullfoss, Halsanefshellir Cave, Iceland, Jokulsar glacial lagoon, Reykjavik, Saga Museum, Thingvellir National Park, Vatnajokull, Vegamot