Iceland

 We've just come back from our quick visit to Iceland. Had a great time. We did the typical touristy things. On Sunday morning we wandered around Reykjavik in and out of the shops and up to the Hallgrimskirkja church. Then in the afternoon caught the coach to The Blue Lagoon. It was lovely in the water. It was lovely floating around in the geothermal waters. The temperature was bath-like, although salty. I put some of the silica mud on my face, so did Ellie and Carl, but Caitlin decided she didn't want to! I could have stayed in there forever, but my fingers were getting a bit wrinkly.

Then in the evening we got back on a coach which took us out into the middle of nowhere to watch for the Northern Lights. We waited for hours in the cold and the dark but didn't really see anything. Fortunately they left the coach open so we could get out of the cold a bit. There was a brief lightening around a cloud which our guide said was the Lights, but not really visible to the human eye. Carl's camera picked it up. 

 Then when we'd given up and were driving back again the Lights appeared and were fantastic - a proper green ribbon of lights all wiggling around. We got off the coach when it could stop and watched for a bit before they disappeared again. Then just as we hit Reykjavik they appeared for a third time and we all got out to marvel. These are Carl's photos. He's not very happy with them cos they are a bit blurry, but its hard to get good photos of the Northern Lights.

 On Monday we hired a car and went out to explore the Golden Circle. There are three main sites to see, the geyser at Geysir which explodes hot water into the air every five-ish minutes, the waterfall at Gullfoss, quite spectacular and very pretty. And Pingvellir.

Pingvellir is where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, hence the big wall of rock behind us. We had lovely weather for most of the time we were there and a few flakes of snow falling on Monday afternoon, which was also lovely. I like a nice bit of snow.