REYKJAVIK, Iceland — The Blue Lagoon, with its geothermally heated soaking pool and spa, is Iceland’s top tourist hotspot.
Yet I may be the only person to have visited the island nation who never set foot (or other body parts) in the famed healing mineral water. I had too many other things I wanted to do and see, like seeking legendary elves and trolls who live in the moss-covered lava fields. (OK, I may have had some angst about baring my torso in a bathing suit.)
The small volcanic island in the North Atlantic formed from fire and ice should be a no-brainer destination for outdoors-obsessed Coloradans, who will find three national parks in which to roam. Iceland offers hiking, biking, ATV or Jeep tours, snowmobiling on glaciers, walking on glaciers, ice climbing, amphibian boating on a glacial lagoon filled with icebergs, cross-country skiing, bird watching, whale watching, fishing and riding Iceland’s special-breed horses. Vacationers also can soak in hot springs, watch spouting geysers and explore lava-tube caves.
Plus, there are so many waterfalls that I and my fellow travelers joked whenever we saw one: “Oh, nooooo, not another waterfall!”
About two-thirds of Iceland’s 320,000 population is centered in Reykjavik, which means visitors are apt to see more sheep than people on a drive around the island. Tourists might go for miles without encountering an oncoming car (at least that was the case when I was there in mid-September). That’s a good thing on some roads off the main drag leading to nature’s wonders, because they are single lane.
But there’s urban fun to be had, too. Reykjavik itself, dubbed the world’s “greenest city” because of its use of geothermal power, is a hip place with good coffee shops, bars and restaurants (you get used to seeing horse, whale and puffin, along with seafood and lamb, on menus). It also has serious theater, art galleries and museums, where you can learn about Vikings, volcanoes and northern lights.
Harpa, the city’s eye-popping landmark concert hall that is home to the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and the Icelandic Opera, anchors Reykjavik’s old harbor downtown. Its exterior of glass blocks was designed to resemble the basalt columns formed from lava and found throughout Iceland. Beams of light from the sea and sky dance through the outer layer of glass cubes, which change color. Harpa, which cost an estimated $250 million to build, houses four concert halls and a conference space. Construction was started shortly before the country’s financial collapse in 2008, and then halted. It eventually was completed in 2011 and, to Icelanders, represents the boldest symbol of the country’s economic recovery. “People reckon that the bottom has been reached, and we’re slowly climbing out,” said one local.
Since May 2012, Icelandair has been flying nonstop from Denver to Europe’s northernmost capital city, Reykjavik (if you think that’s difficult to pronounce — RAY-kya-vick — don’t even try with some other Icelandic names. And, please, someone, explain why the town of Höfn is pronounced Hup. I know, I know. It has something to do with two little dots over the “o.”)
The flight from Denver International Airport to Keflavik International Airport (daily from June 2 to Sept. 9 and six days a week from Sept. 9 until the following June) takes about seven hours — tolerable. And to entice visitors to Iceland, the airline allows its passengers flying to one of more than 20 destinations in Europe to stay in Iceland for up to seven nights at no additional airfare cost. So, say you planned to fly Icelandair to Barcelona, you could stop off in Iceland for up to seven nights for the same airfare.
But Iceland easily could be a two-week destination on its own. The island, much of it hauntingly scenic and desolate, intriguingly idyllic and eerie, will leave even the most jaded been-there-done-that traveler enthralled.
And, at times, perhaps a little nervous.
Fire and ice
It was when we walked to the entrance of Svinafellsjökull, a glacier in southeast Iceland, that I felt some trepidation. A memorial sign had been erected “with love” by families and friends of two young German tourists who had been hiking on the glacier. The men have been missing since August 2007. Their tents were found, but no other trace of them.
Before I left, my friends and family had different concerns about my trip. They were worried about the potentially exploding volcano Bardarbunga, which was in the news constantly. (Actually, Bardarbunga itself was not erupting; the fiery molten was coming from one of its fissures nearby, Holuhraun.)
What they — and I — didn’t know is that volcanoes are a way of life in Iceland. I later learned that the country has as many as 50 active volcanoes. And Iceland has had more than 3,000 earthquakes in the past month. The geologic activity has to do with its tectonic plates: Iceland is centered over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with the Eurasian plate on one side and the North American plate on the other. They’re moving apart almost an inch a year.
The problem in Iceland, according to volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson, is that Iceland’s most active volcanoes have an ice cap, and when the magma comes out under the ice at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, it melts the ice, creating violent steam explosions and massive flooding.
“If these volcanoes didn’t have an ice cap, the eruptions would be quiet lava flows,” he said.
I was secretly hoping Bardarbunga would mess up plans for a “fire and ice” excursion I had signed up for. It’s that trepidation thing. The itinerary included riding a two-person snowmobile on the Vatnajökull glacier, Europe’s largest ice cap. I have a fear of heights, and I had visions of me flying off the edge of a mountain, never to be found. Would loved ones erect a memorial sign for me: “Missing since Sept. 13, 2014”?
When Bardarbunga didn’t live up to its disruptive expectations, I collected my courage and decided to meet the challenge. I felt somewhat better when our snowmobile guide, Jon, said that the ice cap was so large that five Londons would fit on it (so no need for me to worry about being close to the edge). But then he ruined it when he said the average crevasse on the glacier is 32 feet deep and 6 feet wide, and that he’s seen crevasses up to 328 feet deep and 49 feet wide (yikes!).
“Just remember to follow me, and you will get home,” Jon instructed our group of eight snowmobiles. Right.
And then I took him up on another piece of advice: Relax. So, I breathed in and breathed out. And enjoyed the ride and the views. And got home — or at least to the next adventure.
The exhilarating snowmobile experience was followed by an amphibian boat ride on Jökulsarlon, a lagoon filled with icebergs tinted blue from the play of light and ice crystals. Willy, our iceberg authority on the lagoon, held up a 1,000-year-old piece of ice and chopped off bits for passengers to taste. Cool.
Icelanders talk about the melting ice and shrinking glaciers. Natalia Chow, who has lived in Iceland 20 years, is a onetime opera singer from Hong Kong and now a tour guide in Iceland. (She was a delightful bonus to the trip, as she channeled Renee Fleming one night at dinner, belting out a tune from “The Merry Widow.” Her impromptu performance brought forth chefs from the restaurant kitchen. She also sang a lighter “Little Things Mean A Lot” as she drove our tour van along the Ring Road back to Reykjavik.)
She said scientists estimate that in 200 years there will be no ice left in Iceland.
“So in 200 years’ time you don’t need to come back to Iceland,” she said.
That could be the outline for a tragic opera.
I hope not. But I hope to return to Iceland before then. And, maybe next time, even take to the waters of the Blue Lagoon.
Mim Swartz, an award-winning former travel editor of The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, lives in Golden. mimswartz@q.com
A lesson from Icelandair’s Class Up
The e-mail offer from Icelandair looked enticing. It arrived about 10 days before my scheduled departure from Denver to Reykjavik.
“Would you like to upgrade with CLASS UP?” it asked. “Name your price to upgrade each leg of your flight… We’ll notify you via e-mail if your request for an upgrade has been approved. If your offer is accepted, you’ll be billed for the upgrade. If not, you pay nothing and keep the seat you have.”
An accompanying graphic showed a “strength meter,” going from red on the left low end, to yellow in the middle, to green on the right high end. The higher you bid, the farther the arrow moved to the right.
I played around with the meter until it showed the highest amount – 99.095 Iceland krona. Note the decimal point. That’s the important part.
I’m terrible at figuring exchange rates, so I went online to a currency converter. I typed in 99.095 and got the U.S. dollar equivalent of 0.83. I thought that meant my bid was $83. Who doesn’t want to sit in the front of the airplane on a seven-hour, 3,500-mile flight, for $83? Fantastic.
I might as well bid the highest amount shown in the green, I thought. I figured the rate a couple of times with different currency converter sites. Each time it showed 0.83. So I submitted my bid of 99.095 krona, along with my credit card number.
About four days before departure, Icelandair informed me that my bid was accepted. I would be flying Saga Class. Great! I had a funny feeling, though. I couldn’t have been wrong about the cost, could I? (I have been on flights over the years that offered last-minute upgrades for $100, $75 or even $50.)
I logged onto my credit card account and slowly worked up my nerve to look at the charges. I took a deep breath, and then let out an “Oh noooooo, Mim. How could you have been so stupid?” My credit card had been billed $836 for the upgrade.
My mistake was with the decimal point, which in Icelandic money language is a comma, or no punctuation at all. I should have written it 99095, not 99.095 on the currency converter.
After arriving in Reykjavik, I stopped by the Icelandair desk to make sure I wasn’t upgraded on the return flight. I didn’t want to pay another $836. And, I asked a fellow Saga Class traveler if she had had the same e-mail pitch. She had not — and she had paid nothing for her upgrade. She was just assigned the Saga Class seat when she checked in at Denver International Airport. And I also learned from several people in the back of the plane that they never received an offer to upgrade.
Michael Raucheisen, marketing and communications coordinator for Icelandair in the U.S., told me the Class-Up Program is through a third party, and he doesn’t know why I was selected and others were not.
All I know is, it was worth every cent on the flight over.
And I also know why I never majored in math.
— Mim Swartz
If you go
High tourist season in Iceland is June, July and August. With Iceland’s proximity to the Arctic Circle, those are the months with the longest daylight hours — more than 21. Winter is the best time to view the northern lights.
Iceland’s climate, tempered by the Gulf Stream, is more moderate than its name and its location close to the Arctic Circle might imply. True, the weather is changeable and can be blustery and rainy, but it also can be sunny and pleasant. Just dress in layers.
An additional appeal to Americans is that Icelanders speak English, and credit cards are accepted for even the smallest purchase (be sure to use one that doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee). I spent 11 days in Iceland without needing to exchange any dollars into Icelandic krona.
For my “Fire and Ice” tour, we took a domestic flight (one hour) from Reykjavik to Höhn, a fishing village of 1,600 on the rural southeast coast, and spent three days in a van with a guide to work our way back to Reykjavik. Höhn is the closest town to the snowmobiling adventure on Vatnajökull glacier.
Glacierjeeps Ice & Adventure offers various excursions on the glacier. (011) 354-478-1000, 011-354-894-3133 (mobile), glacierjeeps.is
Jökulsarlon, about 230 miles east of Reykjavik, is the site of the glacier lagoon with icebergs. Both amphibian and Zodiac boat tours are given. (011) 354-478-2222, jokulsarlon.is
Hotels:
Hotel Höfn, (001) 354-478-1240, hotelhofn.is.
Hof 1 Hotel, a small hotel on a farm-like setting near the glacier lagoon, (011) 354-478-2260, hof1.is.
Hotel Selfoss, about 35 miles east of Reykjavik on the banks of a river, is a modern upscale hotel with an excellent restaurant. It’s near the Fakasel Horse Park and several golf courses. (011) 354-480-2500, hotelselfoss.is.
Additional information:
icelandtravel.is
grayline.is
Tour guide:
Natalia Chow, (011) 354-699-4613, nataliachow89@gmail.com
