Iceland – Vikings, Waterfalls and all that Lava!

There’s a reason why the Vikings and their successors took off in their longboats to discover new, warmer and less foreboding lands. For those of you who have visited Iceland, this, somewhat desolate region in the North Atlantic, only a few kilometers south of the Arctic circle, you will understand and perhaps relate to what follows in this Chronicle.
But first, let me explain why my wife and I elected to visit this relatively, cold, rainy, and believe me, expensive piece of real estate situated off the coasts of the Scandinavian Countries as well as that of Great Britain and Ireland. We returned barely 3 weeks ago and so all memories are fresh in our minds.
The Schwartz’s still have a small bucket list of places they want or need to visit. We have travelled for over 56 years and in that time have either experienced or touched down in over 80 countries… suffice to say, we like to visit and experience new places, peoples and cultures. Iceland had remained on our “bucket list”.. South Sudan, Armenia and Mongolia, , not so much!
There are several ways to visit Iceland. Many people opt for a circumnavigational cruise; some want to do a self-drive see the land up close and personal type of visit and then there are those like ourselves, now heading into our junior-senior years who are perfectly happy to take an escorted land tour, in this case with Wing Buddy.
Icelandair is the carrier Wing Buddy uses and a basic economy seat is included in the flight portion of the trip. Baggage allowance was limited to one carry-on per person. This was NOT going to work as our trip involved staying at 8 different hotels over 10 nights and of course we needed, raingear, hiking gear, cold weather clothing, shoe changes etc. Carry-on baggage alone would not suffice and to check each bag was going to cost us considerably extra… Ah well, suck it up.
When we inquired, an upgrade to Premium Economy seating on this flight (return) would add a truly significant increase to our costs. That upgrade would of course, include 1 checked in bag at no extra cost!
Because the flight was only about 5.5 hrs long, Liz and I decided we could manage; bite the bullet and reluctantly we would spend the upcharge for checked in bags.
But wait! Breaking news!. Two days before our flight departs, Icelandair e-mails us that they are NOT sold out of their Premium Economy seating and would we be interested in “bidding” for an upgrade? They called it an auction with the highest bids received resulting in a seating upgrade for the winners.
We did submit a bid and… won premium seating for substantially less than the posted price. For us… a bonus! Little did we know that at the end of our trip, a similar auction would be held on our return flight for Premium Economy seat upgrades, and once again, Liz and I were winners for even less than the monies we offered on the outgoing trip!
Believe me, this “benefit” at both the start and end of our trip was greatly appreciated and bottom line, it ended up costing us only 1/3 of what we might have paid had we opted for Premium Economy through our tour operator. We were entitled, as well to the executive lounges at the airports while awaiting our flight embarkation.
We thought the Toronto lounge would be a peaceful place to park ourselves prior to our flight departure, however, it was not exclusive to Iceland Airlines and in fact, premium passengers from 7 or 8 other airlines were also accommodated in this facility such that there was literally a fight for available seating; long line-ups for the free food offerings and beverages were sold as opposed to simply being offered.
The overnight flight left near midnight and we arrived at Reykjavik towards 8:30 in the morning. It was grey, cool and… raining.
Facing our “first day at leisure” since we could not get into our tour hotel until 4:00 PM that afternoon, we visited the Blue Lagoon, one of Iceland’s principal tourist attractions where you could experience swimming in geo-thermal-heated pools adjacent to the ocean that had a distinct sulphur odor. Free facial treatments; a welcome drink, showers and transportation to and from the Lagoon site were included.
We finished and arrived back at our hotel too late for the “meet and greet” with the rest of the tour members and its guide, but obviously hooked up with them the next morning for our very abbreviated tour of the Capital city of Reykjavik before our bus pulled out of town to commence the 9 days of travelling throughout the island.
Without going into exhausting detail, there were waterfalls to visit and more waterfalls to visit and yes, even more waterfalls to visit! Some you could see from afar; some you could see from designated, nearby lookouts and some you could even experience by walking under or behind them… thus the need for waterproof hiking boots and rainwear… an absolute requirement.
We stayed in different towns every night and in one or two instances, lodges that were nowhere near a town, but to give credit where it is due, the facilities were clean; of reasonable size, despite the fact that showers were barely enclosed and water sprayed everywhere…. and all served a great buffet breakfast.
Mid-day lunches as we travelled about were basically at our own expense but we quickly showed a number of others on the tour the benefits of stealthily and furtively “making sandwiches” at the breakfast buffet which, along with croissants or muffins or even cookies were secreted into our knapsacks. By the end of the trip almost everyone was doing the same, despite subtle table cards on the breakfast tables which clearly suggested that we were not to do so but that the staff would be more than welcome to make us a boxed lunch for a nominal cost… not so nominal in most people’s opinions.
While the tour did include several group dinner meals, most others were on our own and the restaurants were expensive because basically almost everything (other than lamb, cod and salmon) is imported… there is little or no domestic food production as the land, some 80% of it is lava-strewn rocks and ash- covered terrain. Very barren and very desolate with only small patches of green farmland thrown into the mix. Hay seemed to be the major crop.
We visited a shark-processing factory and tasted that specialty. We also stopped at a horse ranch to acquaint ourselves with a unique breed of animal not found elsewhere in the world that exhibited a strange 5th gait.
Almost all of our group made the time to take an amphibious cruise through a bay consisting of smaller icebergs where we were shown glacial ice that was over 1000 years old!
On almost any given day we stopped at semi-extinct volcanic craters, some of which required us to climb a considerable number of steps to the top to look down into huge, bowl-shaped cavities and you could only imagine what that might have looked like if the volcanoes were active. Many years ago, Liz and I had visited Sicily and did see Mount Etna’s active volcano from the very summit… it is an awe-inspiring sight.
There were visits to smaller churches and also to models of original “turf-houses” where the early explorers and settlers lived. It is hard to imagine, but Iceland has the world’s oldest, continuous Parliamentary System of Government in the world, far ahead of England and those of other “civilized and developed” countries. We had to pry information like this from our guide, who, although well-versed in the history and culture of the Island, was reticent to divulge many details unless continuously prodded by Liz or myself and a few of the other tour participants, many of whom were from Australia. All in all, 7 Canadians, about 6 Australians and a scattering of others.
One thing we all agreed upon on day 2 was that our bus driver must have once dreamt of being a Formula 1 car racer. He drove our 40 – seat bus like a madman, often passing 3-4 cars at a time on narrow two- lane roads which melded into a single lane bridge when crossing rivers or wide streams. Our guide even quietly polled our group to ask if we thought the driver was going too fast and being a bit reckless… the vote was 140% yes!
We were fortunate to experience about 5 days during the middle of our trip when it did not rain. Yes, the temperatures rarely if ever reached 14 degrees C but with proper layers of clothing we managed. On our second last night we actually stayed at a rural, country resort that had its own golf club and although we did not have our clubs with us or adequate time, the last tee-off time was at 9:40 PM at night which would afford the players sufficient light and time to complete their round.
Our last night was spent back in the Capital at the same hotel as our first night and there we bid adieu to most of our travelling companions who were either extending their trip elsewhere or returning to their home countries by different airlines.
We dined with friends at an excellent restaurant where we celebrated our 56th anniversary and were treated to a free dessert specialty by the restaurant owners. A nice touch.
The following morning with more than a half day of leisure time, we visited a drop-dead beautiful music-opera hall that would put any North American facility to shame and then went to a Lava show to learn how and why, Iceland, New Zealand and Hawaii share such a common, geological feature.
Oh, and before I forget… Icelandair once again auctioned off available Premium Economy seating for the return flight to Toronto and yes, we won again at a lower price than the bid we had placed for the departing flight.
This time, the first – class airport lounge was reserved strictly for Icelandair passengers with premium or business seating and it was a delight… quiet, spacious, good finger foods and complementary wines… and yes, it was, once again, raining outside.
To describe our visit in 80 words or less… mostly rainy; mostly lava-strewn ground; a population of 450,000 souls, half of whom lived in the capital the rest strewn about the island with the next largest town having 20,000 people. It was cold, at least for us in late July/early August. The people were friendly and there was almost 100% employment with many of the service industry positions taken up by younger people from surrounding European Countries.
Would we go back? Probably not as we have reached a stage where warmer climate destinations appeal, but was the trip worthwhile – absolutely!