July, 2021
July 14 – Reykjavik, Iceland
Tonight we slept in the gallery! Brimarsbru Sleep Inn – Art Gallery. Indeed, it really does look like a museum – a large home garage that has been converted into an original photo gallery of a family member. The toilet and the shower are in the private house, so you pass the owner in front of his TV and through the bedrooms 😊, but actually he prefers to shower outside! And it’s cold and rainy … ☹
Today we started the trip in Iceland. Much has already been said about her special beauty … so all is indeed true! and we have not seen anything yet. The sky is low, the mountains are high, and the color combination is amazing. Outside temperature is of one digit and it rains which makes the bathing in hot water springs especially pleasant.
July 16 – Hverir, Iceland
So far, the Icelanders make an impression of tough people … polite and quiet but tough and unimaginative like their homes. Probably according to the rough nature and weather around them. Yesterday the sun went out for a few hours and everyone jumped into the open pools, while outside temperature is only 10 degrees !
July 18 – Studlagil Canyon, Iceland
The amount of water in Iceland is enormous and the price you pay is rain all the time… By the way, in the supermarket you can hardly find water to buy, there is plenty of all kinds of drinks, but water is not easily located, and that is because you do not buy water here, just fill from the tap or stream nearby. Today we were in a very special place – Studalagil Mall, basically reminiscent of the ‘hexagon pool’ back in Israel, only on a completely different scale
July 20 – East Iceland
Simplicity … everything seems simple in Iceland, their houses, churches, cemeteries (simple wooden cross without a tombstone), hotels (small rooms, very clean with minimal furniture), the campsites (usually a lawn with minimal services) … and it seems to us that the people are simple too.
July 20 – South-East Iceland
Loneliness … there is something very lonely in Icelanders. They are not outgoing, cold and not easy to contact … even with our openness and Israeli smile it does not work so much … Most of the day we spent in the fog, the cloud fell on the ground and decided to stay, at times the sky showed allowing to take some pictures.
July 21 – South Cost, Iceland
Finally we have reached the ice … After all, we are in Iceland 😉. Maybe the glaciers are a bit overrated, still they make a beautiful photography. The thing that is really special about Iceland is the completely different landscapes that you can see during just a half day drive.
July 22 – Pakgil Camping, Iceland
We got up at seven in the morning and climbed about 300 meters vertically … and this is what you see from there … We also kind of walked through various seasons overnight – yesterday was summer and today it is winter, rain …
July 25 – West cost, Iceland
Although the rain can sometimes be annoying it of course has clear advantages, and one of them is the rainbow, but not every day you see a rainbow lying on the ground (!) … and as always, Iceland is extremely photogenic.
July 27 – North West, Iceland
Iceland – a story about the water…
We arrived at Hraunfossar and there is a waterfall here.. one can say, so what is so special about a waterfall in Iceland?, there are so many of them there… Well, this waterfall lies on its side and springs from a rock for a kilometer. After a quite complex calculation I came to the conclusion that the amount of water falling from the sky less the amount of water in the waterfalls gives a negative number. So I wondered who creates the excess water. After a long consideration I came to a conclusion – it is a well known fact that there are trolls in Iceland (not the computers kind) and elves 😊. They are known to live in the depths of the earth, so they are probably the reason for all the excess water and miraculous flow in all the streams. I know it sounds implausible but do you have a better explanation 😉?
For the last two days we have been wandering in northwest Iceland … tomorrow we drive towards Reykjavik and from there to Romania 😊
Iceland – the summary
There are places whose very name sounds to you like a dream, as if you said, “tomorrow I’m ready to leave everything and go there”, places like New Zealand, Machu Picchu, Kamchatka, Iceland … We discovered that a friend who we had not seen for years is planning to visit Iceland, so in a moment decision we flew to the magical island for two weeks. For years we have been hearing about Iceland, the spectacular pictures, the erupting volcanoes, the waterfalls that flood hot pools and gigantic glaciers. How would one miss such an opportunity? It took us 2 minutes to decide and there were 5 days left to organize the trip.
First thing we find out that Iceland is open to vaccinated Israelis, so we easily booked a flight, which is not an obvious thing in the days of Corona, and here we are already on our way. Then, a surprising turn in the plot, we did not find a car for rent. Did we forget how to use Google? We never encountered a situation where there is no car to rent in the entire country (!)… well, we will sort it later, we started looking for hotels. And then again, there are almost no hotels, and those that we did find do not suit us (we are looking for 9 plus in Booking.com, reasonable size and private bathroom). Well something strange is happening here. It’s time to read a bit about Iceland …
Iceland has 360,000 inhabitants and close to two and a half million tourists a year (!), which would not have been so terrible if most of them had not come together during a high season, which lasts about two and a half months. This means that in season there are more tourists than residents of the island. The recommendation in the guides is to plan a trip 3-4 months in advance and book everything (again, three to four months in advance and we have five days in the middle of the high season!). We were very close to canceling, thinking that we may be touring Iceland at the age of 85, so we will probably plan things half a year in advance 😊. In another surprising turn, the friend with whom we set up to meet, canceled. So, we found a camper for a couple and flew to Iceland!!
The nature in this country is indeed AMAZING!!! There is no corner that is not special, in a few minutes you pass from green mountains in dark green to a deep yellow desert that raises smoke and immediately afterwards to glaciers in dark blue. There are more waterfalls here than roundabouts in Raanana, and we have not yet talked about fjords, fishing villages and geysers …
However, if you ask us, we will hesitate to recommend Iceland for three main reasons: first, as you already understand, the country is crowded with tourists; second, the weather is unpredictable, we had 2 sunny days within two weeks and it was still cold; and the third and the most significant reason for us, the Icelanders… they are cold and distant, the service is accurate but not personal, to make them smile is really hard, not to mention small talk between people from different cultures. In retrospective, all the nice Icelanders we met along the way turned out not to be from Iceland originally (Poles or Germans for example).
Well, for those who do not like to plan in advance, and not willing / cannot pay a fortune for a vacation and do not want overcrowded sites, go to Croatia 😊.
HE