France v2.0

Hello everyone, if anyone is out there! Greg On The Go is back on-line for new adventures. I am back in France for more cycling and tourism for 2023. I had to over come some technical issues with the Blog site, but my friend Carl helped me get it all straightened out. So here we go!

But first, before we get to France, my conscience is bothering me at lot since I said 4 years ago that I was going to share my trip to Iceland on my way home from France in 2019. Unfortunately, I did not do that for a variety of reasons. To ease my conscience I wanted to at least give a run down of that trip and share some photos since I know that is what everyone really wants to see anyway.

The trip to Iceland started from Paris on August first. I did not get into Keflavik ( the airport) until very late. By the time I secured my baggage and the rental car, it was after 2 AM before I got settled into my motel room. It was the Base Hotel, since it used to be a part of the military base in Keflavik.

My plan for Iceland is to drive the “Ring Road” which is the main hwy that circles the island, thus the name. I got a pretty late start to things the next morning due to the late hour I got in. I decided to make a “practice round” with the car and the roads by driving out to the coast before settling out on the ring road. The coast in that area was very volcanic with lots of lava floes right down to the waters edge

I hiked around and at one point must have gotten too close to an Arctic Tern’s nest since she sort of was dive bombing me as a sign to stay away.

During my “practice round” I also wanted to find out where the famous Blue Lagoon was since I was going to end up my trip there before going to to the airport in about a week.

So it was on the the Ring Road. To get there, I did not want to back track all the way to Reykjavik so I followed a gravel road to where I met the main road. From there it was pretty straightforward about where to go. There are not very many paved roads in Iceland to choose from aside from the Ring Road! I chose a counter clock wise path and set out. Along the way, there are lots of waterfalls and glaciers to see.

This waterfall was named Seljalandfoss. If you look closely, you can see people hiking beside the falls. (I did not do this since they all looked like they were getting pretty wet).

Next, it was on to Skogafoss. This one of the most famous water falls in Iceland and has been featured in many car commercials that I recognized. One thing about Iceland that I noticed is how many more tourists there were. I had been to iceland many years ago and when I visited Skogafoss then, I was about the only one there and I recall that we were able to drive our car along the river bank right up to the falls. Not any more! There were hundreds of people there and a paid parking area that was full.

I planned to stay the night in Vik. It turns out the all of the hotel rooms in Vik were full. Another big change from the last visit! But one thing about Icelandic people… they are nice and helpful. They helped me line up a place out of town in a boarding house where I was able to get a bed and a blanket. I found a good place to eat in Vik. Good homemade soup and some Icelandic craft beer. One good thing about the increased tourism was that the food and beverage situation was a lot better than before.

The next day, I explored the beach just outside of Vik. It was a black sand beach, which might be similar to some found in Hawaii (never been there) except for the sun, surfers, and bikinis. But is was beautiful in its own right. There were lots of shore birds flying around including puffins, but I was not able to get close enough for a picture.

Next, it was on to Svartifoss. This was a interesting waterfall because of all the basalt columns that surrounded the fall. There was a nice campground and park at this waterfall as well.

From Svartifoss, it was on to Hofn. There were more waterfalls and Glaciers to see on the way there. I learned my lesson about hiking on Icelandic glaciers before. It was easy going up, but I thought I was going to toboggan down and break my neck, so no glacier hiking without proper equipment this time.

Hofn was another adventure trying to find a place to lodge for the night. Hofn is a fishing harbor, but this weekend it turned out that they were hosting a Soccer tournament for teams from the entire country. No rooms in the motels at all. But there was a hostel that had vacancies. I ended up sleeping in a room with five other people, some french, aussies, and me. Coed, but it is not a big deal, for them or me.

The next day, I would make my way toward Lake Myvatn. Several water falls are along the way there as you would expect. They were big and powerful. And no rails or warning signs. You could walk right to the edge of the fall and peer over the side. I guess Iceland doesn’t have too many lawyers (yet).

There was an entire sequence of waterfalls that I visited, each impressive in its own way. The top photo is of Selfoss and the lower photo is Dettifoss, just downriver. Next is was onto Myvatn Lake.

Myvatn means Lake of the Midges and is aptly named. A midge is a small mosquito like insect, which fortunately does’t bite like a mosquito, thank goodness. The sky was filled with them!

So guess what! I couldn’t find a motel room in Reykahlid, the largest town along Lake Myvatn! I guess there is a theme here somewhere. I was able to find a place out of town about half an hour around the lake that even had a restaurant for dinner too. I don’t recall that it was outrageously expensive either, and that can also been a theme of Iceland. It can tend to be on the expensive side of things.

The next morning, I drove back to Reykahlid to go hike the volcano that is right there. Luckily, this one is extinct, not like many on the island that are still active as you might have seen in the news over the last many years.

Next stop, Godafoss. Another one of the more famous waterfalls of Iceland and the last one I visited in the northeast portion of the island.

Now, I am traveling in the north part of the island. There are some interesting features of the drive. Like long tunnels. 3, 4, 7 mile long tunnels… that are one lane! There are pullouts at close intervals, but it is still a game of chicken at times as oncoming cars approach and you have to figure out if you can make it to the next pullout or use the closest one. I didn’t encounter any wrecks so I guess the systems works. Driving along this part of Iceland is interesting. When you see the ocean, it is the North Sea and the next land that you would find to the north would be the Arctic polar cap. It really does feel like the end of the world.

That night, I found a motel on the first try! it was in Varmahlid. Nothing really interesting about the town except that it wasn’t overrun with tourists I guess. The next day, I would be heading back toward Reykjavik. There were some options here. I decided that if the weather looked promising, I would head toward Gullfoss, the most famous waterfall in Iceland. I had been there before, but it had been raining so my photos of it were not very good. As luck would have it, the weather was pretty good so that is what I did. This is part of what is known in Iceland as the “Golden Circle”, as opposed to the Ring Road. The Golden Circle is a shorter tourist circuit closest to Reykjavik and has the most tourist activity. But what the heck, right? Gullfoss is impressive. It is a multilevel waterfall that cascades into a chasm at the bottom, then flows parallel to the fall.

Finally, there is Geysir, a thermal basin right near Gullfoss. It is only a fraction of the size of Yellowstone, but pretty cool anyway. The main geyser erupts about every ten minutes so there is not much standing around waiting for it and it doesn’t erupt as high as many others either, but it is always fun to see geysers, right?

Tomorrow will be the last day. I headed back to Keflavik and the Base Motel. I was able to avoid Reykjavik entirely this trip, not that there is anything wrong with Reykjavik. It’s just that I have been there and seen most all of the sites there.

The only thing left to do is visit the famous Blue Lagoon. I will do that tomorrow before heading to the airport. It should set me up for a nice relaxing ride home after a few hours soaking in the hot waters of the resort. The Blue Lagoon is not natural. It is a body of water that was formed from the outfall of the nearby thermal power station. Almost all of Iceland’s electrical power comes from geothermal plants. Nice! And the Blue Lagoon is a nice byproduct of that power source.

The Blue Lagoon isn’t really cheap. It was about $100, but did include a towel and a free drink at the in-pool bar. But it was worth the experience because you would always regret not going, at least that is the way I looked at it.

Just a few notes on Iceland to wrap things up. As you probably know, I like to cycle and tend to look at things from a riders perspective. There were quite a few bicycle tourists I saw on the road. The Ring Road did not have a very wide shoulder so I thought that was a real negative aspect of bicycle touring in Iceland. But the biggest thing was the weather. I enjoyed very nice weather while I was there (by Icelandic standards). Having said that, almost every cyclist I saw was wearing every bit of clothing they owned it looked to me that they were not very happy in the process. August is the warmest month in Iceland and the average daily high temperature is 59F.

[My thanks to Rupert for sending me this just today. He and his wife are currently cycling in Iceland and by all accounts are having a wonderful trip. So there are exceptions to all rules] So that was Iceland, 2019. On to France 2023!