Well, I didn’t foresee my second post in the Polar Bear Winter Festival being a TV review but I also didn’t realise that the first episode of the new series of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby on BBC2 was going to be about the ION Adventure Hotel in Iceland. What’s more wintery than a … More Amazing Hotels: ION Adventure Hotel
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I want to walk the Laugavegur Trail again. I did it in 2018, with mixed results, and I’d like to do it again. International travel is starting to open up again. Well, I guess it’s been open enough for a while. For the avoidance of doubt, … More I want to do the Laugavegur Trail again (and how I’ll do it differently)
So we’re back in Iceland with Mr Pointless himself, Alexander Armstrong, with a series that is mostly called Iceland with Alexander Armstrong but if you watch the title cards around the third break in the second episode, it’s also called Alexander Armstrong’s Iceland Adventure. Nice one, Channel 5, on the consistency with the very simplest … More Alexander Armstrong in Iceland, episodes 2 & 3
Well, it seems I’m the go-to person for writing about celebrity travelogues in Iceland (see Zac Efron last summer…) so here we are again in Iceland with Alexander Armstrong. Of course, a well-spoken BBC presenter on a Channel 5 documentary isn’t going to make quite the waves throughout the internet that a Hollywood A-lister on … More Iceland with Alexander Armstrong (episode 1)
So, has anyone else watched the new Netflix Katla series? It’s a dark, eerie atmospheric thriller set in the small town of Vík, or to give it its full name Vík í Mýrdal, on the south coast, in the shadow of a year-long eruption of the volcano Katla. Vík and Katla are both real. Vík is … More Netflix’s Katla review and local guide
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a volcano in Iceland still going strong. It’s a great tourist volcano – it’s fairly small and it’s pretty but mostly not dangerous. It’s producing a bit of gas and every now and then it has to be closed because of the volume of gas builds up but the lava … More Inside the Volcano
Since I’ve gone back to swimming recently, and since I made some comments about Iceland the Obligatory Naked Shower (although it’s possible they were in the first version that I deleted and rewrote), I thought I’d write a whole post about Iceland and swimming. Most western countries are pretty big drinkers and Iceland is no … More Iceland and swimming
Nearly two weeks ago, Iceland’s new eruption started (I wrote a blog about it last week) and half the country flocked to see it. I don’t blame them, I’d be among them if not for the plague. But a similar eruption happened in 1973, the birth of the volcano Eldfell, and things worked out very … More Eldfell: the people who fought a volcano
If there wasn’t a plague on, I’d be in Iceland by now, or at least I’d have a flight booked and be pacing the floor waiting for it. You see, the Icelandic eruption finally started just before 9pm on Friday and it’s gorgeous! (If anyone can give me a valid reason I can present to … More The Icelandic eruption is happening
I don’t often do actual time-sensitive topical blog posts but it’s a Thursday, new blog day, and Iceland is threatening an eruption! Now, I wrote this at 11pm last night when it was still just a major earthquake swarm with no actual eruption but by the time this is published twelve hours later, who knows? … More What’s going on with the Iceland eruption?
I Am A Polar Bear 