The horse’s name was Vorboðar, which means Bringer of Spring and he was not doing his job. Naively, I’d expected spring in Iceland to look quite a lot like summer – sunshine, leaves, people in lighter clothes – and what I’d seen of it so far had been winter but without the fun stuff like… More Horse riding in the rain | Iceland 2022
I can’t believe I’ve never done this one! In January 2013, I went on one of the most expensive but also one of the most amazing and exclusive day trips I’ve ever done: a superjeep tour out to Landmannalaugar in the snow! At the time, it was either with Grayline or Reykjavik Excursions; the former… More Landmannalaugar in the snow
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
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
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
Deleting old posts that have never been read and are not doing their job has a definite upside: I get to write them again but better! And so to my adventure snowmobiling on a volcano! This must have been about 2013 and I’d finally given in to the allure of driving a scary tough machine… More Snowmobiling on a volcano
And for the second part of my new Icelandic Guidebook series, I’m going to introduce you to the south west’s most popular day trip: the Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is really the tourist tag for a route that takes in Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss. There are plenty of other stops according to the whim… More The Icelandic Guidebook: The Golden Circle
This is another of those subjects I’ve been looking forward to writing since I started this series in January. W for Westman Islands. The Westman Islands are a ragged little archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. They’re the tops of submarine volcanoes that have somehow exploded above the surface. The youngest is Surtsey which… More The A-Z of Iceland: W for Westman Islands
I’ve been going to Iceland for quite a few years now and I think one of the major characteristics of Icelandic people is storytelling. This is a country where 10% of the population will have something published in their lifetime (many statistics will tell you this is a book. It’s not. “Something” covers “letters written… More The A-Z of Iceland: T for Troll Rocks
Iceland is a small country in the North Atlantic, where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge peeks out from above the waves. It’s a constructive plate boundary, which means it’s where two tectonic plates (the North American plate and the Eurasian plate) are pulling apart from each other. This leaves a big hole in the Earth’s crust and… More The A-Z of Iceland: R for Renewable Energy