Iceland - Prebankruptcy (theirs not ours..,yet!)

Greg and I had both heard great things about Reykjavik, Iceland from a number of sources. It made our list quite awhile ago, but we waited until August to go to hit the best weather. And it worked...but we went in late August and had great weather, but and sadly, one of the islands highlights, Puffins, depart in mid August. Bummer - guess we'll have to go again some day. Now that the country has gone bankrupt, we might be able to get a deal.

A few interesting notes on Iceland. First, they had one of the first female presidents in the world from 1980-1996. Second, they had prohibition until the mid 80's. Third, it's an island so it's fairly expensive, but no worse than London by our account. Fourth, Icelanders drink more coffee per capita than anywhere in the world.

Reykjavik is an easy weekend trip from London - 2.5 hours on Iceland Air and you are in the home of Bjork. We stayed at the Hilton (again had to take advantage of the HP discount so went with a chain), it was good but was not walking distance to downtown. We had a car, so it was fine.

After breakfast at Kaffitar (the Starbucks of Iceland - good spot that we ate at every morning), we spent the first day shopping as there is a surprising about of great fashion and shops in Reykiovich where I found my new favorite designer Sparksmannsspjarir - I could throw out my entire wardrobe and wear nothing but their label. We stopped for lunch a great spot called Geyser ended up there the following night for dinner and would highly recommend it.

The next day we hit the countryside and did the famous Golden Circle drive which was a great way to see the very interesting geology and topography of Iceland. We made a stop a the Pingvellir National Park where you can see the edge of the North American continental plate and played an important role in Icelandic political history. Then we were off to see a few geysers and hot pools. We ended the trip with a stop at Gullfoss or Golden Falls which were pretty spectacular and made the whole drive worth it.

Cool Looking Icelandic Horses

I talked Greg into a whale watching boat trip on day three. We really lucked out on the weather and supposedly saw all five species of whales, but I don't think its an excursion either of us would recommend....unless the puffins are in town. Interestingly, we did see whale on a few menus around town. Iceland decided to lift the ban on commercial whaling in 2006 but it has been a pretty divisive issue between country and city folk.

The Icelandic Look

We wrapped up our last day with a leisurely morning and then hit the famous Blue Lagoon on our way out to the airport. The less you know about it, the cooler it is so I will just let the photos do all the talking.

All in all, a nice trip. Unless you are an uber outdoors man (Huey definition - enjoy multi day hikes with camping), I wouldn't recommend more than a long weekend. But if you can get there fairly easily, it's worth a stop - Iceland air use to run 48 hour stop overs on their transatlantic flights.

We brought Mogan back a toy puffin