Today was our last full day in Iceland, so we scheduled a whale watching trip for the morning, and a "Golden Circle" tour (more on that later) for the afternoon. After breakfast, we walked downtown to catch the boat for our whale-watching tour.
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| Reykjavik at 8:00AM after a night of hard partying (them, not us) |
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| Harpa, the new concert hall in Central Reykjavik |
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| Reykjavik Harbor |
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| Pride of the Icelandic Navy |
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| A view of the concert hall from the boat |
The whale-watching cruise was not a success--we were out there for 2 and 1/2 hours in very rough seas, and the guide thought she might have seen a whale, but she wasn't sure. The weather was overcast, so there wasn't much to see besides whales, and there were no whales. Bummer.
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| Are we having fun yet? |
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| View of part of Reykjavik from the boat |
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| View across the bay from Reykjavik |
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| Seems a little short to me, but I don't know much about boats |
The weather cleared as soon as we got back from the boat trip. We had lunch at the harbor and then started our trip to the "Golden Circle". The
Golden Circle encompasses 3 sites about 50 miles from Reykjavik: the Þingvellir national park, the Gullfoss waterfall, and the Geysir and Strokkur geysers.
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| Cafe Haiti, which is actually owned by a woman from Haiti. |
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| Still in Reykjavik--this is City Hall |
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| Tjomin Lake, in the center of Reykjavik |
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| Icelandic Horses |
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| A 1955 Chrysler Imperial |
First stop on the trip was
Þingvellir National Park, which was the site of the first national parliament (from the year 930). In addition, it's where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, so there are a lot of geologic gaps in the area.
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| Between the plates |
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| Þingvellir National Park |
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| Þingvellir National Park |
The next stop was Gulfoss (Golden Falls), which isn't all, but is plenty wide.
The next stop was the thermal area containing the Geysir and Strokkur geysers.
Geysir is where the word "geyser" came from. It used to erupt regularly, but now it mostly sits there. Strokkur, on the other hand, erupts every 5-6 minutes.
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| Geysir (sitting there not erupting) |
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| Strokkur, finishing an eruption |
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| Strokkur, beginning to erupt... |
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| ...and continuing.... |
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| ...and continuing.... |
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| ...and continuing.... |
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| Another satisfied customer |
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| More steam near the geysers |
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| Traffic jam near the geysers |
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| Small waterfall and salmon ladder near the geysers |
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| A crater lake near the geysers |
From there we headed back to Reykjavik. Our flight was not until 5:30PM the next day, so we spent the early afternoon at the
Blue Lagoon, which is a thermal pool near the airport.
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| Reykjavik suburbs, on the way to the airport |
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| Terrain near the airport--volcanic rock and moss |
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| At the Blue Lagoon |
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| More of the landscape near the Blue Lagoon |
Our flight from Reykjavik to Boston passed over Greenland, which provided a few good shots.
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| Greenland |
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| Greenland |
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| Greenland |
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| Downtown Boston as seen from Logan Airport |
And that's it! Thanks for viewing--you've been a wonderful audience.
