Driving Iceland

by Neil Woodburn on

As part of our continuing campaign to educate the masses about one of my favorite places, Iceland, we bring you yet another article about this fine country. This one focuses on the Icelandic Road Trip, an adventure fond to my heart having done such a journey a few years back.

The article itself is also a few years old, but things don’t change that quickly in the Icelandic outback. There are still almost no stop signs and still plenty of rivers to drive through. In fact, most of the autos on the island have special modifications to prevent such river crossings from flooding your muffler.

Highway 1, which circles the island, runs for 1,000 miles. My brother and I cut the journey in half by cutting through the center of Iceland where the landscape is other-worldly and bizarre. Either way you slice it though, driving in Iceland was one of the most spectacular experiences of my life. Wow.

And by the way, you’ll pay dearly for it. The car we rented, some average South Korean 4X4, cost us $200 a day. Ouch!

Icelandic Shindig

by Neil Woodburn on

In a post last February titled “World’s Greatest Parties” we briefly mentioned a very oddly named festival held every summer in Iceland.

At the time I wrote the post, I remember not being able to dig up much information about this particular party. There was some websites in Icelandic, but alomst no accounts by foreigners who actually venture out this far.

I was therefore pleased to run across a rather impressive account of a foreigner (Irish, in this case) who has actually witnessed this spectacular event.

Graham Little, writing for the Sunday Times, traveled to the Westman Island Music Festival last summer and returned to tell tales of Viking-like debauchery that occurred within a volcanic crater nestled amongst a remote string of islands otherwise inhabited by puffins.

8,000 inebriated Icelanders come here for three days of music, drinking, and, according to Little, lots of “writhing, conjoined” activity. My favorite quote; “Venturing too far up the steep slopes of the old volcano is like walking through the middle of the mountain-goat breeding season.”

To keep things moving right along, self-appointed “Sleep Police” shake awake anyone caught sleeping and force a shot of vodka down their throats. Although 21 hours of sunlight a day help keep the Sleep Police at Bay, Little was still plied full of alcohol, sleep deprived, thoroughly exhausted, and desperate to go home by the end of the festival–and all this from an Irishman! You just know things are out of hand when the Irish go fleeing a booze bash!

This year’s festival occurs August 4-7.

Word for the Travel Wise (07/06/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Okay, so I was just toying around looking for something to inspire a word or two tonight and this was the best I could do. Maybe it wasn’t the best, but it gave me a small chuckle. I went to Iceland’s tourism site to see what events were happening around the country, but got sucked into What Are They Saying About Us semi gossipy press-release section. In this section of the site you’ll find stories from the NY Times, Globe and Mail, LA Times, Shape Magazine and even the Oprah Show, where Ms. Oprah Winfrey is quoted saying, “I think I’m part Icelandic.” That to me is funny. Otherwise it really hasn’t a whole lot to do with the word I ended up going with, but I’m sure you’ll get it.

Today’s word is an Icelandic word used in Iceland:

dýrt – expensive

Háskóli Íslands, one of the universities offers an excellent free starter course to learning Icelandic. Pictures, text, and audio for sample conversations are included. European Youth Portal points out other sources of study within the country and distance learning. I’ve met several speakers with My Language Exchange. Lastly, check out the BBC for a few easy phrases to help get you around the town.

Past Icelandic words: söngkona/söngvari, himnaríki, velkomin

To Iceland?

by Erik Olsen on

I’ve been planning my own summer vacation and wondering where to go. As I was thinking about all the places I’d most like to head, I realized that Iceland kept popping up, so I decided to poke around in some old posts about the country to see what I’ve written. I was reminded of a post about a piece by Mark Sundeen, who went rafting in Iceland. Sundeen, you may remember, wrote the book The Making of Toro, which made my summer reading list last this year. 

In the article, Sundeen talks about the thrills and chills of riding rivers in a place that while less cold than Greenland…and more green that Greenland, is still rather cold.  Face it, being close to the Arctic Circle does not make for the most promising notions of good river rafting. But as Sundeen points out, the weather is warm enough during the mid summer months that the glaciers melt and create some pretty ideal (albeit ball shrinkingly cold) rafting opportunities.

Two Days in Reykjavik

by Neil Woodburn on

I can think of many reasons to visit Iceland in June but was quite unprepared for the one suggested by Lucy Gillmore in The Independent: to roll around naked in the dew.  Apparently Icelandic dew is blessed with medicinal powers and rolling around in it is the thing to do on the summer solstice. 

Thankfully Gillmore provides a few more reasons to visit Iceland than dew rolling.  48 Hours in: Reykjavik covers the basic hotel options and tourist sites–such as the funky Hallgrimskirkja Church pictured here.  Gillmore also fills us in on the shopping, restaurants, and the nightlife (which rages all night on the weekends). 

No article about Iceland would be complete, however, without mentioning the fabled Blue Lagoon, 45 kilometers from the city center.  These natural hot springs glow strangely blue and melting into their warm waters is one of the most pleasant activities I’ve enjoyed on this planet.

Like the Blue Lagoon, so much of what Iceland has to offer lies outside Reykjavik’s city boundaries.  An article about Iceland that only covers the capital is like an article about California that only covers Los Angeles.  Sure, the city is great, but what the region is truly known for requires one to leave the big city.  Spend your 48 hours in Reykjavik, then head out of town.