The first Parliament and two tectonic plates

Date: 28/06/2017
From/To: Selfoss
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

Today we had a look at the other half of the golden circle, in particular at the area where the ‘American’ and the ‘Eurasian’ tectonic plates meet.

Well, you could think that these are the sides of the plates, they aren’t. Still the picture look great J As we have learned, there is a large gap between both plates, in fact, the gap is a small valley.

Below is the valley between both plates. Apparently further south the plates are closer together. This valley was used by the ‘Althing‘, the first national parliament of Iceland, in 930AD. Amazingly, session where held here until 1798. The flag pole shows the assumed position of the place of the assembly.


In the park was as well a nice church. We hurried to visit it, since it started to rain heavily. We didn’t want to go out into the rain, so we stayed in side when a guide tour came through. We learned a lot about this church J.


In the evening we went out for dinner. This was the only time in Iceland that the food was affordable. We found the place yesterday, when we visited ‘Skalholt’ church. On the side was a beautiful restaurant with reasonable prices. So we decided to have our fare well dinner here. There was grapes growing inside the restaurant, in the ‘wintergarden’Curiosoty got the better of us , so we ask the waitress for a tasting.No problem was the answer, she some for us to try.


On the way home we stopped at Kerid, a volcanic crater.

We were lifting some ‘heavy volcanic’ rocks, as you can see I have to improve my level of fitness.

 


What a marvellous day. If the weather permits, we will have a look at a glacier tomorrow, this time from the bottom.

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