My Icelandic Diary

Actually, Red Baron didn’t want to fly anymore in this lifetime, but who can resist a charmingly presented suggestion to visit Iceland?

In the background, the Mainhatton skyline at dawn

So at 7:25 a.m. in Frankfurt, we boarded an Icelandair plane for the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Reykjavik.

I tasted and tested Icelandic ESJA beer on the plane

The international airport is no longer near the city center but at Keflavik about 50 km to the west, so after a 45-minute drive we - having been woken up at 4:00 a.m. - arrived at our Reykjavik hotel quite tired.

There we realized that the winter clothes we’d packed weren’t enough for the windy, rainy, and chilly 13 °C weather. So Red Baron bought a bonnet, which he didn’t end up needing at all in the days that followed.

For we’d brought the warm, Central European weather with us; during the trip to Iceland’s east coast, we had sunshine and temperatures as high as 25 °C.

After our first night in Reykjavik, our small group traveled in a minibus with a luggage trailer to the Gullfoss waterfall and the Strokkur geyser.

Thanks to our tour guide, Andri, our trip to Iceland became an unforgettable experience. As a native Icelander with a German education, he knew exactly how to bring his homeland to life for us in all its facets. Even when answering difficult questions, his explanations were seamless. Lucky are those who travel with this multitasker - that is, he was also the driver and the one who took care of our luggage.

Over millions of years, the Hvítá River had carved a deep canyon into the ancient lava rock. Upstream, we caught sight of the imposing Gullfoss waterfall. 

A text from a 1907 travel book reads:

 
No waterfall in Europe can match Gullfoss. In both ferocity and fury, it outdoes Niagara Falls in the United States. The power of thousands of untamed horses flows down into the gorge, year in and year out. Gullfoss will surely be harnessed for electricity production to supply the inhabitants of the southern part of the country with an abundance of light and heat.

But Sigríður from Bratthold was against it. She fought for the preservation of this cultural monument:

The weather was cold and windy.

King Christian X of Denmark visited Gullfoss on June 19, 1936:

A last look back on Gullfoss before we left for Geysir.

In contrast to Gullfoss, the Strokkur geyser was a disappointment.

An information panel at the entrance to the site stated: A geyser erupts intermittently and spits hot water to heights ranging from several centimeters up to tens of meters. Strokkur does it every 8 to 10 minutes, reaching heights of 25 to 35 meters.

Click to enlarge

The base of a geyser is a long column of water. A vent extends several tens of meters into the earth, where temperatures reach up to 100°. When the water at the bottom is heating up and subjected to too much pressure from the water column above, it superheats, abruptly forming steam and releasing the pressure by ejecting the water column above as a geyser.

Visitors waited patiently, cameras on their cell phones ready, for Strokkur to erupt.

Finally, the geyser emitted a small puff of steam. Was Strokkur suffering from the weather?

Having experienced Old Faithful at Yellowstone, an American tourist voiced his disappointment. Well, Old Faithful has eruptions of 25 to 55 meters but only at intervals of 30 to 100 minutes.

More impressive was the steaming landscape.

The Litli Geysir by the side of the trail was trying its best and cheered us up.

On the map above, the Geysir proper is marked nearby, which, however, only erupts following earthquakes, like in 1896 and 1930. The last time the Geysir erupted was in 2000. We didn’t have time to wait.

Stay tuned for more.
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