The Golden Circle

The Golden Circle has nothing to do with pee. It is a tourist route that is drivable in a single day from which we can experience some highlights of the Icelandic landscape.

We rented a car and drove off across the volcanic landscape! First we saw sheep.

Then piles of rocks.

 Then we moved some rocks around.

Then we stood on the edge of the North American plate and looked across the rift zone to the European plate. These plates drift apart about 2 cm per year, increasing the size of Iceland. In the rift zone there was an old church and graveyard.

We found a super clear gorge.

Jennifer climbed up. It's not a HUGE gorge, just a little one.

And then ... geysirs! We witnessed several eruptions, which occurs every 5-8 minutes.

We saw some gnarly BMW's from Europe. There must be a ferry or something.

And then .. Gullfoss! This is a fantastic waterfall with tremendous amounts of water (more than Niagara even!). First we hiked to the bottom overlook, then the top, and took photos. Note the rainbows!

Before going back to Reykjavik we drove south to the coast and visited another waterfall.

We walked behind it and posed in front.

The drive back to Reykjavik was sort of boring until we passed over the mountains and the little car struggled ... we floored it and gave it everything it had trying to keep up with traffic. We were worried for a little while, but it made it.

The beautiful weather we experienced in Iceland offset the dreary rain in Norway. In hindsight we should have shifted our trip two weeks later. Oh well.

One thing I did in Iceland was learn about other parts of Iceland. There are vast interior tracts accessible only by jacked up offroad vehicles, and myriads of fjords on each end of the iceland waiting to be explored. Some day ...

And that's the end of our trip to Europe in 2012. What's next .... ??