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.
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.
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.
Cool rocks along the walkway.
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.)
We have no idea what this statue is for. We just called it a monument to the Wedgie. This was near the geyser stop.
Our Golden Circle tour also included Gullfoss, or Golden Falls, which is a 2-step waterfall.
Reykjavik has many colorful houses and the graffiti, if it is that and not the building owners scheme, is attractive.
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.
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.
Amir Khalid
I know what that weird statue in photo No. 4 is. It depicts the sport of wife-carrying.
rikyrah
Beautiful pictures ?
rikyrah
Anyone seen Quinerly???
p.a.
@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
spudgun
@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).
JPL
The concert hall is magnificent. Thank you so much for sharing the pictures.
JPL
@rikyrah: I was thinking about Quinerly and hoping that all is well.
Jack Canuck
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!
Wag
We did a 10 day trip to Iceland a few summers ago. I highly recommend an extended trip. The ring road is amazing.
satby
Makes me want to go to Iceland too! Thanks MelissaM!
satby
@rikyrah: @JPL: she hasn’t commented as herself, but as her Spanish speaking dog commented a day or two ago.
Barbara
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.
JPL
@satby: Thanks lol
Sab
@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.
Auntie Anne
Those pictures are amazing! (Adding another place to my list . . .)
Sab
@satby: I am encouraged to learn Spanish, which I gave up when I left Florida as a child in 1966. Good dog, Poco!
Sab
@satby: On the internet no one knows you are a dog unless you say so ( big eared beagle.)
Amir Khalid
@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.
debbie
I believe Portland, Maine also has a wife-carrying contest. NPR’s sports program, Only a Game, covered it long ago.
raven
@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.
debbie
@raven:
I’ll take the public drunkenness over these clowns insisting that mandatory masking violates their Constitutional rights.
bemused
@Amir Khalid:
Finland has wife carrying championship events. I didn’t research if Iceland or other nordic countries compete.
rikyrah
@satby:
Yeah ?
p.a.
@raven: If he had known, would have gotten a paragraph, or perhaps a footnote, from Freud.
Kattails
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!
MelissaM
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.
Mike in Oly
Thanks for the brief tour! Love the shot of the lava flow.
J R in WV
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.
arrieve
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.
oldster
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!
SkyBluePink
Thank you, MelissaM!
What a fascinating place (and photos!)
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: We heard from JoJo not too long ago. Not quite the same thing, but close!
Miss Bianca
@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…
Ceci n est pas mon nym
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.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@J R in WV: I do. What was the update?
Mo MacArbie
What did he do? (Sorry, couldn’t resist).
stinger
Great pictures of an amazing country! Thanks for sharing them!
lahke
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!