An Iceland Adventure

I’ve always liked Vikings.  When I was a kid my friend had this toy castle like a metal briefcase.  When it was folded open it revealed scenes from a feudal life painted inside; animals and fire rings, water wells and peasants carrying buckets.  There was a plastic drawbridge that fit into the opening by the hinge and the set came with a bunch of small plastic knights and Vikings.  The Vikings looked tough.  They were molded in green plastic and had long swords and round shields and wore helmets with horns sticking out of them.

When we learned in school about the first European discovery of North America, Erik the Red and Leif Ericsson got brief mention as having sailed out of the North Atlantic in open long boats to disembark at some far off point in modern day Canada they called Vinland.  This was centuries before Columbus brought disease and clothes to the natives in the Caribbean.  The little that was known about these Viking adventurers – and their cool names - added to their mystique.

The blue church near our cottage in Uthlid

Recently, as Thanksgiving approached, my wife and I contemplated something to do besides make the long drive to New Jersey in stop-and-go traffic just to eat dry turkey and watch 8-hours of American football.  During the course of these dinner-table conversations, my 11-year old daughter mentioned Iceland.  This reignited a spark in me, and as my wife and I did our research, we realized there were a lot of cool things that a family of four, including our 9-year old son, could do in a six-day visit to Iceland.  Juxtaposed against the drudgery that awaited us in New Jersey, the choice became apparent.  We flew to Iceland.

Family shot at Gullfoss waterfall

We touched down at Keflavik airport, about 40 kilometers outside Reykjavik, on Friday morning.  My wife had the brilliant stroke to use accumulated credit card points to knock about $1,000 off the cost of the cheapest airline tickets we could find.  A few years ago she was able to get us all to Hawaii for free using airline miles we had racked up on our various cards.  There is definitely an art to the use of credit card rewards programs and this was just my wife’s latest masterpiece.

If you don’t have a credit card with a rewards program, Icelandair offers discounted fares from several major cities in the U.S. to Reykjavik starting after the new year.  Beginning in the summer of 2015, Wow Airlines is offering inaugural fares from BWI to Reykjavik that are probably less than your monthly grocery bill.

Our introduction to the weather came shortly after we landed.  It was what you might expect of a place called Iceland – midnight dark, despite it being 7:30 in the morning; cold, windy, rain.  Combined with the fact that we had no map, only rudimentary directions to our destination, and encountered fog as thick as molasses, you might say we were like those first Vikings that went off in search of new land – hopeful we would not die.  But roads are few in Iceland, and well-marked at that.

 

Reykjavik is the northernmost European capital and home to two-thirds of the nearly 322,000 hearty souls that call Iceland home. One of the things we hoped to see during our visit was the Northern Lights.  While several bus tours will take you outside the umbrella of light pollution generated by the city for a few hours, there needs to be both dark and clear skies in order to view this naturally occurring phenomenon.  We were fairly certain it would be dark – the sun rises at 10:00 a.m. and sets at 4:00 p.m. this time of year – but we were less certain that skies would be clear during the window of time we would be on a tour.  Instead, we decided our best chance of seeing the Lights would be if we “lived” outside the city during part of our stay.

Airbnb offers many choices in the hinterlands of Iceland, but we settled on a 2-bedroom cottage with kitchen where we could cook some meals and hot tub where we could soak and watch the skies.  Our family has adopted the travel philosophy of not trying to do too many things in one day.  This makes for more agreeable children and happier parents.  Because the cottage was centrally located to the Golden Circle, Iceland’s triumvirate of must see tourist attractions – Geysir, Gullfloss, and Pingvellir - it was easy for us to do day trips.  We also had a fine time floating around the 100 degree waters of the Secret Lagoon in Fludir - site of the oldest swimming pool in Iceland, dating from 1871. 

Attacked by noodles in the Secret Lagoon

 

We had read about the laxity of Icelandic safety standards and they lived up to their reputation.  At Geysir, the home of the original water spout after which all others are named, a 90 meter jet of boiling water shoots into the sky and rains down on the spectators who are separated from the bubbling pool by an ankle high rope more suitable for hanging laundry than stopping trespassers.  At Gullfoss, Iceland’s most visited waterfall, you can get so close to the water that you may as well be wearing your bathing suit.  And at Pingvellir, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the location of every important historical event in the making of the Republic, I unwittingly managed to drive our rental car up the pedestrian path, past the drowning pool and the hallowed Law Rock where the first parliaments met, and into the rift valley created by the separation of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.  

Nobody paid any attention to this sign warning of dangerous conditions at the waterfall

Despite these near brushes with death, on Monday our party drove to Reykjavik, where we rented a 3-bedroom apartment.  We were only a short walk from the main pedestrian street – Laugavegur – which is pronounced just like it is spelled, and spent a lot of time prowling the souvenir shops.  Though, our tendency to always want to look in the next shop for cheaper prices, which we have passed on to our kids, means we end up doing more looking than buying.  We took home a few rocks that we picked up in the country and the jaw from a lamb we had for dinner as mementos.

We climbed the tower in the Hallgrimskirkja, the church that looks like a space shuttle, for 360 degree views of the city.  We also had a fun time at the Settlement Exhibition museum where we got to dress as Vikings and learn the story of the settlement of Reykjavik through the excavation of a long house dating from 930 A.D.  This museum, like many of the attractions we visited, has free admission for children under age 12.  It was also noteworthy because it told the settlement story through very cool interactive displays and had a section devoted to period games for the kids to play and props for them to handle.

Selfie, with wife at Pingvellir

On Wednesday we climbed aboard the shuttle bus, on which the kids rode free, to make our flight home.  In the end, we didn’t get to see the Northern Lights.  And we left other winter activities such as glacier tours and more hot springs, on the table. this trip will definitely go down in the pantheon of family lore.   And it gives us an excuse to go back.  Iceland also offers a slew of summer activities.  And who wouldn’t want to experience 24-hours of sun?