Day two we saw the sights along what is called The Golden Circle. It is an easy day trip from Reykjavik so it is often the only place beyond the capital that people see.
Pingvellir is the site where two tectonic plates are separating from each other- on one side is North America and on the other side is Europe! They move apart about 2 centimeters a year.
There is a little waterfall there called Oxararfoss, the first of many we saw in Iceland.
We saw pretty little churches like this one all throughout Iceland.
The second stop was to see the Geysir Strokkur, which erupts every 5-10 minutes. We get our word geyser from this area in Iceland. It was while visiting here that we started to see what we'd kind of heard: Iceland isn't really ready for the number of tourists who want to come see it. There was only a tiny parking lot, but luckily, people were coming and going pretty often, so we were able to grab a spot.
Our last stop blew us away; we had no idea how huge Gullfoss Waterfall was! There were several places to view it: from above, walking along next to it, and down towards the bottom. It was by far the biggest waterfall we saw in Iceland, and it was the only waterfall we've ever seen whose river was transverse from the fall (at the bottom of the falls the river and gorge turned and went along at an angle to the falls instead of continuing straight ahead).
Our last stop that day was the Kerid Volcano crater, which formed from another long-ago eruption (6,500 years ago). The area collapsed and filled with water, creating a little lake. The reds of the dirt and the green of the brush were very vivid and beautiful. This was another 50-mile-an-hour wind-gusts afternoon, so we didn't stay long, but it was worth a quick look.
1 comment:
That is truly one of the most incredible waterfalls ever! Your pictures are pretty stunning.
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