Iceland Day 3 (Part 2)

After lunch, the conference had organized a tour of the Golden Circle, which hits three of the highlights of a visit to Iceland. Our first stop was Pingvellir. (Actually, that's not quite right; the first letter is a character that we don't have in English, but it's pronounced pretty much likes "th." In fact, most sounds in Icelandic don't really exist in English, but luckily the people here speak English impeccably.). Anyway, Pingvellir is an interesting spot both geologically and historically. Geologically, the place marks a spot near where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. Actually, the plates are believed to be separated by 30km, but in this area, there are many fissures that result from the earth moving apart. In fact, the plates are moving apart from each other at a rate of 2.5cm per year; our guide today tells us that Icelandians expect that their country will one day be as large as America. Historically, Pingvellir is important as it was effectively the seat of "parliament" from the early settling of Iceland until the 1800s. At this place, the chieftains (and in fact anyone else who wanted to come) would gather once a year to deal with the island's legal affairs. One man, called the "law speaker" was appointed to recite the laws (before there was a tradition of writing in Iceland, he had to commit all of the laws to memory).  The law speaker also presided over the proceedings, which included introducing new laws and resolving disputes among the people of Iceland. There was no enforcement of judgements, and this was left to the honor code (or left to the offended party to ensure). One of the worst punishments to be proscribed was 3 year banishment. As the civilization matured, the people desired to have a government more similar to other European countries, and ambassadors were sent to foreign courts to learn their ways. As they brought back the notion of written laws, a written law book was established, transitioning the law speaker to something more like "head lawyer." In the year 1000, pressure mounted from many sources for Iceland to adopt Christianity as the official religion and to put aside dominant pagan practices. The opposing sides presented their cases to the law speaker, and he adjourned to his tent to think. To this day, there is a phrase in Icelandic that translates loosely to something like "lie with hides on your head" which means to think deeply about something. The law speaker thought for a day and a night, and then the next day, he announced that the country would in fact officially adopt Christianity, but what people did privately in their own homes was their business. This seems pretty demonstrative of the Icelandic people's laid back attitude.

After visiting Pingvellir, we headed down a partially unpaved road for an hour on a lovely scenic drive with views of mountains and glaciers. Our next stop was Geysir, the geyser for which all other geysers are named. It doesn't erupt any longer, but it's neighbor Strokkur does, and that was really neat. There were also other nearby little hotspots, including Litil Geysir, which was basically just a little boiling pond (that was literally boiling).

From Geysir, we headed to Gullfoss, one of Iceland's largest and prettiest waterfalls. Gulffoss is in two levels, for a total drop of 32 meters. The pictures below capture this pretty well for you. It was magnificent. From the waterfall, we headed to a working farm that is also a hotel and restaurant. We had a delicious dinner of seafood soup, lamb, and rhubarb pie (the rhubarb were harvested today). Now we're headed back to the hotel, and though it's 10:30 at night, it's still quite bright outside.

Here are Tim's photos.

And mine using the point-and-shoot.  The last picture is Mount Hekla in the distance.  The second to last one is Mount unpronounceable, the volcano that erupted in April of last year.

And the EveryTrail version.

Iceland Golden Circle at EveryTrail