When fire meets ice and ashes draw color, it must be a special place. If beaches are as black as the night with waves as cold as the glaciers, the almighty queens of the island, and if mountains are as green, as orange, or as black as the ashes around them – you must be someplace special. Is it a piece of Greenland that broke off and went out into the big ocean? Is it a lost part of Europe that went very much of track? It is one of the few countries where one can simply not win the discussion of “who it belongs to” as the place literally consists of both European and North American tectonic plates. The main question is, does a country that classily beautiful have to give a damn about politics, or can it just shine in a glow of pride of the beauty it has become?
Yes, Europe’s second biggest island is not sitting still, it is quite literally moving. That and the fact it is one of the few places in Europe where one can still enjoy the beauty of a glacier, are just a few small reasons you should probably push it higher up your bucket list, even if it wasn’t there before. Iceland really is one of the few places in the world that has managed to put several countries, or planets, if you will, onto one island. Having rented a car for 2 proper weeks (car is a must, 10 days are also sufficient if you want to save a bit) and the plan to follow the golden circle, we knew a lot of beauty awaited. Route 1 is called the golden circle for good reason, it shows you the entire island with the exception of a few gravel roads anyone with curiosity can take, and then there are the feared or loved F-roads which anyone with a 4-wheel drive and some balls can take (both requirements exclude me)
Following the golden circle truly is a golden experience. You will most probably start in Reykjavik in the west unless you have an anxiety for flying and take the boat to the east. But I never write with advice on how to travel, for that you can google, I am just going to let you hop in on my poetic journey on this lonely little island that politically and geographically might have found its place, its explanation, but that tells so many stories that it could write its own big, dusty old fairytale, suitable for everyone’s bookshelf. 1 convenient funfact I will share to warn fellow travellers; there is no such thing as a weather forecast for Iceland. First of all, because it is way too big and you can try searching for specific names, but usually the places are too small for precise forecasts to show online and most important; your keyboard probably does not own all these cool Icelandic letters, sorry. Bottom line however; Iceland does not obey the weather; Iceland just takes whatever the ocean drops on them.
We were one of those lucky bastards who had only 2 first days of extreme fog and rain that quickly swapped for an unbelievable amount of sunshine and blue sky treats. Moral of the story; be ready for anything, but especially sun, rain, wind, and a proper temperature difference of 10 degrees depending on weathermoods and your precise Icelandic location. Usually as there is so much to see yet every place is so small, you will not find yourself too long at 1 place. And as you move onto the next place, there is a new forecast, new landscapes, and basically a new planet. The area around Reykjavik is this lovely, mushy, intense green area that reminds a bit of Scotland with mountains instead of hills. But they look just as soft and squeezy as if the hands of the giants that supposedly lived there, have actually had some fun with the mountains, treating them as their own playgrounds and shaping the mountains into very risky, bald shapes with a high risk of a sheep or person one day finding themselves getting hit by half a mountain.
Ah and, there is someone else who loves treating Iceland as their playground, or a few someone’s actually; the volcanoes. Yes, Iceland is also one of the few places in Europe with active volcanoes, which is why its often referred to as the land of fire and ice. The volcano, destructive as it is, is actually the main reason why many parts of Iceland like these, are so intensely green that it straight away becomes your favourite color in the world. Vulcanic ashes are told to have a fertilizing effect on grounds due to their overload of minerals. If this is totally true or just a way of positively coping with the regular ash showers; Iceland is one-of-a-kind green. But those beautifully shaped mountains that still looked like they were clayed by the hands of some toddler giants, are not around all the time. Sometimes all of a sudden Iceland is so flat that you do not see anything, fog or not, around you, except for this endless stretch of green.
Funny thing is that, with only around 350 000 residents, outside Reykjavik and withdrawing the small cities scattered around the island, you will only find very randomly places houses, farms usually, in the middle of the fields. Sometimes with fun colors but, I realized that they did not fit the image I had in mind of your typical red Scandinavian wooden houses. And that’s how I learned that Iceland hardly has any forest at all, because it had already been used up for earlier wood production. The presence of lava now usually leads to grounds that are not suitable for trees. but, as our Icelandic folks are such massive nature lovers, they are working on planting trees where it is possible. Just because, why wouldn’t you want to add that one missing element of natural beauty to an already stunning country, why not have it all?
Another fun fact about Iceland we call sheep. Icelanders; 323 000 vs Sheep; 800 000. Yes, If you ever fear for some animal take over in the world, fear the sheep. Or at least this island, as sheep are not great swimmers Europe should be safe. They do definitely own the island already, so whilst you are enjoying the constant possibly of driving 90km an hour without any disturbance, be ready for a random sheep to block the road without any intimidation by your speeding car. Accept it, deal with it, they are the boss. Besides those very small cute little sheep there area also plenty of beautiful, wild looking Icelandic horses around. They usually have funny stare-offs with the sheep as they, unlike the small wool balls, are not able to find their ways around the surprisingly weak fence systems around their massive fields. So yes, the sheep roam around anywhere they like whereas the horses are forced to live in their massive fields full of ever growing juicy grasses, covered in crystal clear puddles of water scattered around the field. The punishment. If I would be a farm animal, I would like to be one in Iceland. Ah, there are also some cows but, not so many. Iceland is not specifically known for outstanding fauna except the amount of birds, such as our beloved puffin and the gyrfalcon, which is the national bird of Iceland; sorry puffin, we still are obsessed with you
Of course Iceland is also heaven for watching 2 other beauties in this beautiful world; lady aurora borealis & a whole squad of variative whale species. Yet, as I did not do any of these on the trip but have been so blessed to experience them on other trips, I will not go so much in depth on that now. Not at all, actually. What I will go on about is more of the gorgeously stunning nature of Iceland and how crazy fast it changes to a whole new country. What is extremely lovely is how the road really never ends as it does go over the whole Iceland. So even if you chose to not pick the side roads, you never have to stop enjoying gazing over the endless road that keeps on stretching through the funny mountains, rolling grass fields, sheep, and funny colored rivers and lakes that variate from milky blue to mud brown, to ash-grey or a nice fresh tap-water color. Yes, that whole mix of glaciers and volcanoes and pure nature means Iceland is a true paradise for people who like colors. And nature. And quiet, and peace. And simply observing the most spectacular and unexplainable miracles of momma nature. For that, obviously, you will have to go onto another blog, as this one has only talked about some funfacts of one of the most special places in the world that feels like a different kind of floating rock in space, a planet of its own.
- It's an amazing life
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