Alsguth Travel Blog

 hello again We said goodbye to Reykjavik and boarded the Norwegian Star to further explore Iceland.   Our first stop was Isafjordur.   We went by bus, through the longest tunnel in West Fjords (this is one of the states in Iceland) to Flateyri.   There we enjoyed some Icelandic music performed in a small church.   There had been an avalanche in this small town that killed 20 people out of a population of under 300.   It was very tragic for the town.   After this avalanche they built this “wall” to protect the town in the future.   You can see that there is sort of an “A” shaped berm to stop and redirect the snow. We visited the oldest bookstore in Iceland ~ that was my happy place of course!  There is not much in the little town but we had a little snack at a coffee shop including Icelandic donuts and smoked trout.  Finally, we visited the northernmost Botanical Garden in the western hemisphere.  There were flowers there we had nev...

 Today we had a bus tour.  This tour showed us the place where the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia come together, a lovely water fall, a geyser and a volcano crater.  Some pictures ... This is the plate tectonic space.  Also in this region, starting with the Vikings back in the late 900's they held an annual conference at Law Rock where they read 1/3 of the law each year.  The details are interesting but WOW - that is a long time ago! Iceland has a lot of Geothermic energy and flowing water - those two things combined supply all the energy needs of the entire country.  They are 100% renewable!  Also, they have 2 water systems into the homes, one is glacier-clear cold water (so delicious!), the other is HOT water from the geothermic "systems".  So, they get much of what they need from Mother Earth. This is Gullfoss - a waterfall.  Icelandic Horses are specific to Iceland.  They are shorter and have a different coat than the h...

 Hello~ We had an adventure getting to Reykjavik - a change in flight on Friday, delay of flight from Newark to Reykjavik... but we finally arrived at about 9am local time.  The overnight flight is only about 5 1/2 hours so there is not a lot of time to sleep.  But, we must carry on. We dropped our luggage off and started to explore the city.  Here are some of the sights: This is our street, in a walking district, our place is at #40 on this 106 block long hop-scotch!  Super fun! Just some random architecture. Church Hallgriskerkja - built 1945-1986 Georgia Boys Choir getting ready to rehearse View from the top of that church. The bells chimed while we were up there (they go off every 15 minutes).  The gleaming steel sculpture on  Reykjavik’ s splendid waterfront that resembles a Viking long-ship is the  ‘Solfar’  or ‘ Sun Voyager .’  The artist Jon Gunnar Arnason created the striking landmark. It was a long day of walking (about 4 miles...