The Golden Circle (Part 1)

Hello! After we left Reykjavik, we headed out in a rental car for the countryside of Iceland! At first we were a little nervous, since the rental car was brand new, with only 35 kilometers on it, but Jake did a great job driving in this foreign land, even when encountering a few surprises (more on that below)! We immediately fell in love with the natural landscape. This was what we were waiting for! Many of the following photos are taken from the car. 

One cool thing about Iceland is that there are so many natural wonders, parks, hiking trails, etc, that along the roads there are a lot of picnic table/parking areas for you to stop at to take pictures and relax. We found one unexpected site where many people had built little towers out of the rocks found nearby a lake. After taking some pictures, we decided to also partake in the tradition, and built a tower of our own!

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Pat, here is what the Iceland license plates look like!

The Golden Circle refers to three sites located about an hour east of Reykjavik: Thingvellir National Park, Geysir, and Gullfoss. We visited these three sites over a two-day period, starting with Thingvellir the first day. Jake and I LOVED this national park, and spent over 3 hours hiking here! This park was full of natural wonders, and it was also the site of the very first parliament in Iceland since about the year 930. The site was located near the center of the settlers in Iceland at the time, so it made for a more convenient journey, although it took many of the settlers more than two weeks to make it to Thingvellir.  The unique landforms and rock formations are a result of continental drift/plate tectonics and also a series of volcanoes while this entire area was all covered up by glaciers. If you want more detail on either the history or the geology of the area, feel free to check out their website: http://www.thingvellir.is/history.aspx

Now for some fun with animals… one of the interesting challenges when driving in Iceland is with animals, specifically unfenced farm animals. We saw probably about 10 of these warning signs during our travels in Iceland and saw sheep and rams right up by the road many times! We only had sheep cross in front of the car twice during our travels, but it is definitely not something we see in Illinois!

 My favorite animal from the trip so far was a dog named Strakur who was living with a family whose cabin we stayed in during this time. Strakur was perhaps the friendliest dog I have ever met! As soon as he heard you open the cabin door, he immediately came running to greet you with a rapidly wagging tail! He had trouble staying still for the picture, but he was such a cute dog!

Besides Strakur, the people who owned the cabin we were staying at also had many horses. Here is the gate at the front of their ranch.

 I wanted to get some pictures of these beautiful horses, but to my dismay, they weren't feeling very photogenic that day.

 Fortunately, I had some good luck with this horse who actually came over to pose for her picture!

And last but not least, during the summer the sun doesn't really fully set in Iceland, so here is a picture taken at around 12:30 at night!

That was already a long post, so Geysir and Gullfoss (waterfall) will be coming up shortly! Enjoy your day!