Date: 01/07/2017
From/To: Selfoss – Grindavik
Distance:126 Km
Total Distance: 5048 Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny
Road: Paved

Last day with Peter and Gerlind, they fly home today. We had the last breakfast together and were driving towards Reykjavik, maybe we would still manage to visit the blue Lagoon.

First we passed a geyser, so we had to stop and take a look at it.

Previously there were some pipes, not sure what the purpose was. But we could see how aggressive the hot steam is. The picture on the right shows a corroded pipe which leaked steam out all the time.

In Reykiavik we stopped and decided that it would be too late for the blue lagoon. Peter and Gerlind had to return the car before they check in, so we had a last coffee togher and then said good bye.

It is amazing how fast the time has passed. 16 days ago we arrive in Iceland and now Peter and Gerlind have to return. We decided to book for the blue lagoon. As we found out, you can’t just rock up there, the ticket have to be purchased online. There are time slots available, and we got the time slot 20:00..21:00. Since the Blue Lagoon closes at 24:00, we took it. Four hours in a hot bath should be enough. But there was plenty of time until 20:00, so we decided to have a look at another place where the American and Eurasia tectonic plates meet. There was a bridge, each end connected to one side. Sigrid tried to hold he bridge up J

In the middle of the bridge you could stand with one leg on the American and with the other on the Eurasian end.

After taking pictures we continued to our accommodation we booked with Airbnb. The house looked marvellous and it had great kitchen with eating area.

We made sure that we at the Blue Lagoon just before 8PM. The place was still packed.

First we hurried into the warm water, since the outside temperature was semi desirable.

If you belive it or not, in one corner of the large pool was a bar. We couldn’t resist and purchased some bubbly. How did we pay for it? The system is very clever. When you enter you get a blue tag and you lock you locker with it. This is used as well for purchases .

Included in the entrance fee there was a special beauty mask for free. So Sigrid tried it, not that she needed it J. Well, there were no pictures taken when I put the mask on. In my opinion, the beauty mask didn’t work for me J.

Just before 24:00 we had a shower and went out. It was still daylight, a bit dimmer than usual, but bright enough that we needed to close the curtains in our bedroom.

Tomorrow we will make our way to the east.

Date: 30/06/2017
From/To: Selfoss
Distance: 0 Km
Total Distance: 4922Km
Weather: Cold, Drizzling, Sunny, Windy
Road: –

On our way to Reykjavik we passed a geothermal power station and decided to have a look at it.

It was quite interesting how they create electricity and heat for central heating. Below is a very simplistic schematic and on the right a turbine with a generator.

From here we went to the Perlan, a museum build on water container holding the geothermal water for Reykjavik.

After we entered we went to the ice cave. But first we got some thermos jackets, well it took me a moment to figure out where the front and the back is.

The ice cave was amazing, blue ice, ice with different layers, even some cracks where we could see from one cave to the next. I noticed as well that it is extremely difficult to get a picture with details in a snow environment. The details of the pictures were mostly black, and given the temperature I didn’t spent too much time to figure out how to overcome it. Anyway, it was still really fun.

At the top there was a glass dome, and you could make self-portraits on the bottom glass facets.

Next stop is the Hallgrímskirkja church.

 

It turned out that tomorrow there would be a concert with a French organist, and she was practicing today. That was quite nice and peaceful in all the hassle and bustle. We sat there for a moment before we went to the top. Walking up was not possible-only via elevator.

The view was nice and you could see some of the nice houses around.

Here is a view back to the Perlan and you can see the huge water container around.

From here we had a stroll through the CBD. It was very educational; you could learn how to bind a tie…

 

and we meet some people we know, with strange clothing J

I really had to laugh when I saw the sign below, the patio was open and it was well above 5 celsius, hmmm, maybe it was +8.

There was art all around.

Sigrid found a Christmas shop, so she wrote her wish list and send it off. Well, no comments from me here J

And I like both sigs below. After reading the sign on the right, I was asking Sigrid if she want go shopping without me and place me in the ‘Husband day care center’. I tried even with ‘please’ and ‘pretty pretty please’, but Sigrid didn’t like to go shopping. Bummer.

So we went back to our current Selfoss home