Today was a mix of the old and new, at least for Kim and myself. For Syd it was all new. We started off with a tour around Reykjavík, a subset of what Kim and I did last year. The stops in Reykjavík included Grótta Lighthouse, Hallgrímskirkja, Bessastaðir (residence of the President of Iceland) and one of my favorites, Höfði, a house in where the 1986 Reykjavík Summit of presidents Ronald Reagan of the United States and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics occurred. It only looks small, this house was the site of many events almost from the time it was built both in Icelandic and world history. It will always be one of my favorite stops here and I was glad to have a chance to revisit it with Sydney.
Next was something new for all, a tour of the Reykianes peninsula which is near Reykjavík. We have been there before, Iceland’s main point of entry Keflavik Airport and the Blue Lagoon are located on it but today we got a chance to enjoy some of the peninsula’s other features including Reykjanes Unesco Global Geopark, Kleifarvatn Lake, Gunnuhver (mud pools and steam vents), and Reykjanesvita (steam vents) and Brimketill (a “troll’s pool” on the Atlantic Ocean.) The Reykianes peninsula contains some of the youngest land in Iceland, only 200,000 to 500,000 years old being in a rift zone i.e. between the North American and Eurasian plates so we were in a land between. Quite the amazing tour. Nature guided us overall, it was raining in Reykjavík (spring rains have yet to let up) but the farther out we moved from the capital city the nicer the weather became. Someone send us a message? The next few days will tell…
