27 February 2016
If there was one tour that would give you a sense of all the great things of Iceland, it's the Golden Circle. 325km of windy winding roads that take you to some spectacular sights.
We started off stoping at Thingvellir where the north American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling, ever so slowly apart. The water in the rift is crystal clear and the lake it leads to is suppose to be one of the best dive spots in Iceland.
In between groups of tour buses, the valley is quiet and very beautiful. The rift is making walls of lava rock that you can hike between and the surrounding mountains and volcano's make for a dramatic background.
Next stop on the road is Geysir. While waiting the 10 minutes for water to shoot up, there was plenty of entertainment watching slip and slide on the sheet of ice covering the ground from the geyser spray. The ground went from ice to boiling water in just a few steps.
All along the road were farms of Icelandic ponies. As soon as we stopped they all ran to the fence for scratches and pets. The ponies were so wooly and stout that they didn't even notice the brisk wind that chased us back into the car.
The last main attraction on the road is Gullfoss, a massive step down waterfall (the largest in Iceland) that thunders down a narrow gorge.
After multiple stops and short hikes out into the wind we made one last stop. Because of all the geothermal energy coming out of the ground they can grow tomatoes on greenhouses all year round. Each plant lasts for 9 months and these greenhouses produce 80% of the tomatoes and 100% of the cucumbers in Iceland. They are even experimenting with bananas.
We stopped for lunch where everything on the menu was a tomato dish and had soup, pizza, and tomatoe ice cream. It was one of the best meals we had in the week
Back in town we wound down the day with a visit to the Phallilogical museum where various phalluses were on display from house mouse to sperm whale. Though not large, it was the most unique museum I have been to.
The sperm whale seemed to be the largest, dwarfing Hanne in both heigt and girth.
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