Iceland - Page 2

Gullfoss - Geysers - Þingvellir - Laugarvatn

The next day we did the Golden Circle circuit, the name for the most popular sights in the country. First we drove to Gullfoss, whose river Hvítá originates in a glacier and falls here 32 meters deep over two steps and flows on in a canyon. A sign points out that the impressive waterfall only exists today thanks to a feisty woman, Sigríður Tómasdóttir. The English almost built a dam here. Often you can see rainbows in the gout here, today it was too cloudy.

Then we visited the geyser geothermal area in the Haukadalur valley in Laugarvatn. Here it steams and bubbles at every corner of the barren landscape. The Great Geyser served as the namesake for all the other fountains. It erupts only rarely, but high, in the year 2000, for example, it is said, it had a fountain 122 meters high. Its more active neighbor Strokkur shoots 20 to 40 meter high fountains every ten minutes towards the sky. Thanks to the earth's minerals, the water presents itself in various shades of blue, colored salts have settled on the rim. Tourists wait in droves with their cameras drawn until a bulge forms on the blue water surface, grows larger and then shoots up explosively into the air. So do we, of course. In the store here for handmade local products you could buy cans of fresh Icelandic mountain air 🙂.

The third in the Golden Circle round was the old parliament site Þingvellir. Here, since 930, the AlÞing - the people's assembly - met once a year for two weeks. This had legislative and judicial function and existed until 1798, in the year 1000 the adoption of Christianity was decided here and 1944 symbolically the Republic of Iceland was proclaimed. The law speaker stood on Lögberg (Law Mountain), where the Icelandic flag flies today. We walked through the Allman Gorge, on the left and on the right accompanied by rock walls getting higher, in the background the 1060 m high shield volcano Skjaldbreiður is enthroned with white peaks. Here is a border between American and Eurasian tectonic plates, 1-2 cm per year they still move apart. Here in the valley Þingvallavatn it is a little bit greener than in the barren previous places.

After the damp and cold weather, the program on the way back included wellness on the shore of Lake Laugarvatn. Since there are also hot springs here, part of it is used for heating buildings, the other part for the baths. There are three different warm pools, one even with 39°, plus a steam bath. Manu was again more courageous and bathed additionally a round in the ice-cold lake. For me, the beautiful view over the lake to the mountains was enough 🙂.