Iceland's Golden Circle

Saturday, September 28, 2013
Reykjavik, Capital Region, Iceland
As the books say, it is neither golden nor a circle, but a historically important and picturesque mossy triangle that doesn't sound as marketable.

After a wonderful breakfast at Hotel Ranga we drove north through the village of Fludir, that is famous for its mushroom production. It was Saturday, so everything was closed, but our knock on the door was answered by the head of mechanicals who said he would show us around. This grow-op has gigantic indoor rooms where the mushrooms grow. They use about 70 big bales of hay per week, compost them, 'cook' them to get out all harmful bacteria, lay the compost with earth and mushroom starter on polyester sheets that are about 2 metres by 40 metres and there they grow, five levels of it and six racks of these per room. After a few five day sessions of growing, the compost is used up and is ground up and used for fertilizer. A very green operation, and they do not use heat as they have to actually cool the area as It overheats due to the growing that goes on.

Our first stop on the 'circle' was Gullfoss, the famous waterfall. After a long walk from the parking lot we experienced the mist, the rainbow and the enormous falls. It had three levels and then drained into this gorgeous river on its way to the ocean.

Geyser was next. This is in the middle of a geothermal field where there are many steam holes where the steam puffs out from a small hole in the ground with fermions amounts of water in a pool or it. Many are just bubbling, but two are each in a large pool of their own that causes a large eruption every 5 to 30 minutes. They spurt gasses and water up as high as 60 metres. My first picture of it was way too close as I got the middle of the eruption but not the bottom or top. I had to go way back even using the wide angle of the camera lens. After they steam and water spray go up, the resultant cloud continues to 'boil' and churn due to the extremely hot gasses expanding - sort of like a volcano or bomb might do.

Pingvellir, the ancient home of the Icelandic government, was next on our tour. This is where the first democratic government in the world was begun in the year 930AD. All major events in Iceland are announced here, like independence from Denmark in 1944, and conversion of the nation to Christianity in 1000AD, and many many more. This is also the site where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates used to meet, but now are moving apart by 2 cm per year, leaving a gap now of about 80 metres.

We returned to Reykjavik via a country side road, checked into our old hotel that we were in last time and headed out for a pasta dinner. We felt the need to lighten up in our eating habits, but the food was amazing. The starter was tempura monkfish after whichHoward had broad pasta with a shrimp/scallop/salmon with white wine and garlic sauce. Minna had lasagna.

Tomorrow we walk Reykjavik after I return the car to Hertz, which will be like gIving away our comfort zone. (No promotional fee paid by Hertz for this endorsement.)
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