Iceland Day III

9-20-17 HELLA, ICELAND: We checked out of the Ion Hotel after breakfast and a second lecture about the Aurora phenomenon. Our first stop was for pix of a lakeside church that we had passed earlier. Judy had asked for a pic stop, and we did so on this occasion, the first time we were back in the neighborhood, also the last time.


The little church on the edge of Thingvellir Lake. The green field is a pasture for a flock of sheep, a metaphor?

We motored on to the crater of an extinct volcano, Kerid, which is fairly close to Reykjavik and has been the site of music concerts with the performers playing on a barge in the lake at the bottom. The attendees ranged around the amphitheater-like caldera. The caldera is red and black with green vegetation and the water is blue/green. We skipped the walk around the perimeter because it was raining hard. Judy did walk almost all the way to the lake at the bottom of the crater.


Concert venue.

Back in the bus we went on to an ancient church, now rebuilt that figured in the Reformation and religious wars that ended up with Iceland as a Lutheran country. The beheading of a Catholic bishop apparently speeded up the rate of conversions. The church is at Skalholt. We saw relics in the basement and left via a dark tunnel to the outside. There is a reconstruction of an early house/church on the site. It is wood construction with a stone foundation and a sod roof.


The church at Skalholt now is smaller than the Reformation Era cathedral, which, we were told, was the biggest in Europe at the time.


The primitive house/church. Watch your step and head going in and out. That's Judy in the black parka.

Modern stained-glass window over the entry door.

Moving on we stopped at Fridheima, a large greenhouse complex growing tomatoes with a modified hydroponic technique using grow lights. They use bumblebees as pollinators. They harvest tomatoes when they’re ripe and get them to the Reykjavik markets the same day or the next morning. They have a restaurant serving tomato soup and their own bread and basil. We had an excellent lunch and were very impressed with the whole operation.


The tomato vines climb up strings hanging from the upper supports.

Lunch time. Those green plants on the tables are the basil for the tomato soup.

After lunch and at the same place, we visited the stables where they raise and train Icelandic horses. The horses are a small breed, but quite strong and are five-gaited. We saw a demonstration of the gaits even though it was still raining.


Sweet face got a nose rub from me.

The rider/trainer showed the smoothness of the gait between and trot and canter by carrying that beer stein around the ring without spilling any. I thought the horse should have gotten the beer.

The last stop was at the Secret Lagoon in Fludir. A natural basin gets water from hot springs where the water temperature is at the boiling point. It’s mixed with the adjacent river water, which is glacial runoff. The temp in the pool is in the nineties, and is a popular bathing/soaking spot. Some of us went in, Judy and I watched, most folks basked in the water without much swimming. We walked around and saw the river and the hot springs and a cute, tiny geyser.


The basking pool is steaming away.

The round pool in the foreground is one of the hot, 200°F, springs. The river is just beyond the spring and cold with glacial melt and rain runoff. At the top of the pic is another greenhouse, this one growing mushrooms. The mist is a mix of steam from the hot spring and fog from the river.

From there it was on to the Hotel Rangá, our home for the next two nights. Dinner was salmon and mushroom soup.