Tim booked an excursion for today (Wednesday), which included riding Icelandic horses followed by a walk on one of Iceland’s glaciers. The horse riding outfit picked him up from the hotel at 8:20am. He and fifteen other tourists were delivered to the horse riding ranch, where they were issued a helmet and a short tutorial on how to get on and make the horse go. The ride was about one and a half hours long. Icelandic horses have a unique speed called a tolt, which is sort of a fast trot. All horses in Iceland are descended from original stock brought from Norway by the first settlers in the 9th century. The breed has remained pure because no horse has been imported in over 800 years. (There are also very strict regulations about bringing riding gear in from out of the country; it simply cannot be done.) Icelandic horses are short, sturdy and generally good-natured. Tim did have to be careful his feet didn’t get in the way of the horse's front legs. After lunch at the horse ranch (some really nice tomato soup and delicious Icelandic butter slathered on fantastic homemade bread) Tim joined a tour bound for Iceland’s fourth largest glacier, Myrdalsjokul. Before walking on the glacier, they stopped at a very lovely waterfall called Skogafoss. The glacier is adjacent to Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that erupted and caused so many airline problems last year. It did not erupt during our visit. The glacier is covered in ash, but it was very interesting to walk on and see the fissures on the surface and how melt travels on and under the ice. The guide did chip off chunks of glacier for everyone to rinse off and taste. By the time the ice travels down far enough to melt, it is around 300 years old. It tasted a lot like water. After removing and returning the ice crampons, the group headed to a second impressive waterfall called Seljalandsfoss. This waterfall fell over a cliff in such a way as to allow walking behind it. Tim returned at 8:30pm to meet up with Christine and Catalin. After being told by the hotel front desk that reservations were not required for a very nice restaurant, called The Pearl, 40 minutes walk from the hotel, they headed out. Turns out a conference had booked the entire restaurant. Disappointed, but undaunted, they headed to a second choice (luckily Christine is an over-planner). It was touted on TripAdvisor as the second best restaurant in town. It was good, maybe not the second best in town, but it was good.
No comments:
Post a Comment