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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road – MelissaM – Iceland Stopover

On The Road – MelissaM – Iceland Stopover

by WaterGirl|  June 25, 20205:00 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Iceland, On The Road, Photo Blogging

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

First Timers Week

It’s Day 4  – let’s give a warm welcome to MelissaM! One thing I love about On the Road is getting to see places I will never visit in person, and Iceland looks nothing like I would have imagined!   The rocks along the walkway are very cool, indeed!

It’s not too late for you to send your photos in and be published next week.  ~WaterGirl

MelissaM

In 2016 my husband and I took our 19yo and 15yo to see their uncle in The Hague. We flew Iceland Air, which allows up to a week stopover in Iceland with no surcharge in airfare, and hey, why not? We stayed only 2 days, which was enough to learn we really want to go back and spend at least a week, drive the ring road, see it all.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 7
þingvellir, Thingvellir

Because we arrived at 6:30am couldn’t get into our room until much later in the afternoon, we did a 5 hour bus tour of highlights close to Reykjavik. First up, Thingvellir, which is where the mid-Atlantic plate rift crests. It’s also where the original Icelanders would hold their annual parliament. This picture looks out from the info center overlook.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 6
Thingvellir

Cool rocks along the walkway.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 5

The tour also took us to see the mighty geyser Strokkur, which I didn’t capture going off, but there were small bubbling holes and lots of steam. This area was appreciated because it was overcast and chilly for us silly Americans dressed for 70 degree weather (picture a 19yo American male in shorts and t-shirt and that’s my kid.)

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 4

We have no idea what this statue is for. We just called it a monument to the Wedgie. This was near the geyser stop.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 3
Gullfoss

Our Golden Circle tour also included Gullfoss, or Golden Falls, which is a 2-step waterfall.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 2
Reykjavik

Reykjavik has many colorful houses and the graffiti, if it is that and not the building owners scheme, is attractive.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover 1
Reykjavik

One of the strangest things was to experience the light. This was early June, so still a few weeks until mid-summer. To get our early flight to Amsterdam, we had to get a 3:30AM shuttle to the bus station, which allowed me to catch this picture. There were people still out enjoying the night/day, while others were straggling home. It’s said that folks in the northern areas stay up with the sun as much as possible.

On The Road - MelissaM - Iceland Stopover
Harpa concert hall

Not to be missed when walking around Reykjavik is the Harpa concert hall. Stunning glass exterior, black lava concrete interior, and *ahem* lovely bathrooms. Good travelers know, if you see a bathroom, especially a clean, free one, use it. We didn’t attend any function here, but tourists are free to walk around inside. Some of the windows are colored, which made lovely patterns on the floor.

I have no idea when we might get back to Iceland, but it will include a car rental and driving further out. As a knitter, I’d love to see some sheep.

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Previous Post: « COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, June 24-25
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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    June 25, 2020 at 5:16 am

    I know what that weird statue in photo No. 4 is. It depicts the sport of wife-carrying.

  2. 2.

    rikyrah

    June 25, 2020 at 5:18 am

    Beautiful pictures ?

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    June 25, 2020 at 5:20 am

    Anyone seen Quinerly???

  4. 4.

    p.a.

    June 25, 2020 at 5:43 am

    @Amir Khalid:  Thank g-d that’s what it is. The sporting world’s not ready for team undie-changing…?
    Great pics b.t.w. Tks

  5. 5.

    spudgun

    June 25, 2020 at 5:56 am

    @rikyrah: This!! In an earlier thread we were talking about commenters we hadn’t heard from in forever, and I knew she was one of them but for the life of me I couldn’t remember her nym.

    Thank you, MelissaM, for these great pix! Iceland is definitely on my bucket list (if we ever get a handle on this pandemic).

  6. 6.

    JPL

    June 25, 2020 at 5:58 am

    The concert hall is magnificent.   Thank you so much for sharing the pictures.

  7. 7.

    JPL

    June 25, 2020 at 6:00 am

    @rikyrah: I was thinking about Quinerly and hoping that all is well.

  8. 8.

    Jack Canuck

    June 25, 2020 at 6:23 am

    Iceland is high on my list of places I’d like to go, but it’s unfortunately a very very long way from Australia. But at least I can enjoy other people’s photos!

  9. 9.

    Wag

    June 25, 2020 at 6:30 am

    We did a 10 day trip to Iceland a few summers ago. I highly recommend an extended trip. The ring road is amazing.

  10. 10.

    satby

    June 25, 2020 at 6:32 am

    Makes me want to go to Iceland too! Thanks MelissaM!

  11. 11.

    satby

    June 25, 2020 at 6:34 am

    @rikyrah: @JPL: she hasn’t commented as herself, but as her Spanish speaking dog commented a day or two ago.

  12. 12.

    Barbara

    June 25, 2020 at 6:34 am

    Great pics! We have been twice, second time staying in Selfoss, Iceland’s second largest city, with 20,000 inhabitants. There are a lot of horseback riding opportunities, and thermal pools to visit.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    June 25, 2020 at 6:39 am

    @satby:  Thanks    lol

  14. 14.

    Sab

    June 25, 2020 at 6:49 am

    @Amir Khalid: Weird statue, but I would like some context.  We laugh, but they live by farming, really far north, with live volcanoes. And survive

    ETA also they fish.

  15. 15.

    Auntie Anne

    June 25, 2020 at 6:52 am

    Those pictures are amazing! (Adding another place to my list . . .)

  16. 16.

    Sab

    June 25, 2020 at 6:53 am

    @satby: I am encouraged to learn Spanish, which I gave up when I left Florida as a child in 1966. Good dog, Poco!

  17. 17.

    Sab

    June 25, 2020 at 6:54 am

    @satby: On the internet no one knows you are a dog unless you say so ( big eared beagle.)

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    June 25, 2020 at 7:12 am

    @Sab:

    It’s a sport invented in Finland: Mister picks Missus up in a fireman’s carry, and then runs a race against the other misters through an obstacle course. I kid you not.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    June 25, 2020 at 7:12 am

    I believe Portland, Maine also has a wife-carrying contest. NPR’s sports program, Only a Game, covered it long ago.

  20. 20.

    raven

    June 25, 2020 at 7:15 am

    @p.a.:
    Gander Pullin

     

    Around 1810 many North Carolinians experienced a strong religious revival movement as Evangelical Christians preached to their congregations the need for a disciplined life, free of frivolous entertainment and drunken amusement. Entertainment began to take on a more benevolent form. Corn shucking and barn raising were still acceptable, while gander pulling came to seem a little too brutal for society’s new sensibilities. Voting day, however, remained a good excuse for public drunkenness.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    June 25, 2020 at 7:22 am

    @raven:

    I’ll take the public drunkenness over these clowns insisting that mandatory masking violates their Constitutional rights.

  22. 22.

    bemused

    June 25, 2020 at 7:52 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Finland has wife carrying championship events. I didn’t research if Iceland or other nordic countries compete.

  23. 23.

    rikyrah

    June 25, 2020 at 8:20 am

    @satby:

    Yeah ?

  24. 24.

    p.a.

    June 25, 2020 at 8:23 am

    @raven: If he had known, would have gotten a paragraph, or perhaps a footnote, from Freud.

  25. 25.

    Kattails

    June 25, 2020 at 8:40 am

    Great pics, thank you! Really enjoying these little tours.  I love the stopover idea.  And, they’ve done a pretty damned good job of keeping C-19 at bay.

    In John McPhee’s book The Control of Nature one of the (3) sections is about the town  Heimaey, on the only populated island,  which held back/diverted a lava flow from closing off its harbor back in 1972. Pretty amazing story.  The effort went on for months as it was a long slow-moving flow that destroyed half the town, but added 5 sq. miles to the island!

  26. 26.

    MelissaM

    June 25, 2020 at 8:45 am

    Thank you all. Re the Wedgie, I did finally look it up and apparently wrestling was a huge sport in Iceland, and this is a statue to it.

  27. 27.

    Mike in Oly

    June 25, 2020 at 8:54 am

    Thanks for the brief tour! Love the shot of the lava flow.

  28. 28.

    J R in WV

    June 25, 2020 at 8:56 am

    OK, glad to know that Quinerly’s dog is keeping us posted on their good current status. I don’t speak nor read Spanish, unfortunately.

  29. 29.

    arrieve

    June 25, 2020 at 9:35 am

    Iceland is close enough to NY that it’s easy to do a short trip (back in the Before days). I did a four-day tour there several years ago and always meant to go back. I loved Thingvellir.

    In the meantime, loved these photos. Thanks for sharing.

  30. 30.

    oldster

    June 25, 2020 at 9:35 am

    On the “Thingvellir”:

    The word “thing” shows up in the names of several legislative assemblies in Nordic countries, like Iceland’s Althing (their Parliament) and the Danish Folketing.

    This shows us the original meaning of our English word. From the Wiktionary entry for “thing”:

    “The word originally meant “assembly”, then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly “an object”.”

    So first people asked, “what is the Thing debating today?”, and then later, “what’s the thing under debate today?”, and eventually “what thing are you referring to?”

    English has a lot of ties to those other Germanic languages — it’s quite a thing!

  31. 31.

    SkyBluePink

    June 25, 2020 at 9:47 am

    Thank you, MelissaM!

    What a fascinating place (and photos!)

  32. 32.

    Miss Bianca

    June 25, 2020 at 9:58 am

    @rikyrah: We heard from JoJo not too long ago. Not quite the same thing, but close!

  33. 33.

    Miss Bianca

    June 25, 2020 at 10:04 am

    @raven: I’d heard of gander pulling in colonial Virginia, hadn’t realized it made its way south. Should have guessed, tho – anywhere that was settled by the Cavalier class and had slavery also seemed to revel in blood sports. Hmm…

  34. 34.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    June 25, 2020 at 10:13 am

    We had Icelandair tickets to Germany right about now. It was just going to be a few hours stopover in the Reykjavik airport for a change of planes. I’d heard that aside from being a very nice airline to fly, that Reykjavik is a totally painless place to go through customs and to change planes, compared to the major airports in Europe.

    Another cool thing about them is that they let you book cheap seats and then make an offer for first-class, Priceline style.

    We took their offer of a voucher (good for three years) and I’ve gradually come to realize that I want to see a little of the country, spend a few days there, if and when we ever travel again. The only thing is that we’re kind of chickens about driving in other countries, so I’d be looking at trains and buses.

  35. 35.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    June 25, 2020 at 10:16 am

    @J R in WV: I do. What was the update?

  36. 36.

    Mo MacArbie

    June 25, 2020 at 11:00 am

    In 2016 my husband and I took our 19yo and 15yo to see their uncle in The Hague.

    What did he do? (Sorry, couldn’t resist).

  37. 37.

    stinger

    June 25, 2020 at 12:21 pm

    Great pictures of an amazing country! Thanks for sharing them!

  38. 38.

    lahke

    June 25, 2020 at 12:23 pm

    I spent a week in Iceland in 2005, and it was lovely.   The cleanest country that I have ever seen–it was a major shock when I saw a cigarette butt on the beach. Driving there is no problem, they drive on the right, use standard international signage, and the traffic is so light it’s easy to cope. And go bathing at the Blue Lagoon!

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