"S Viemeister" <firstn...@lastname.oc.ku> wrote in message
news:7c9l5hF260gulU1@mid.individual.net...
Iceland, please! I haven't been there in forty years, and am thinking of
a short stopover there.
Perhaps I'll do this first then!
First the preamble:
Flew into Iceland this morning, bought two boxes of fish and some frozen
peas, Oh sorry wrong Iceland!
As I'm sure everyone knows, Iceland is an expensive country to visit, but
it's become cheaper in the past year due to the weakening of their currency.
But even so, hotels and car hire are still expensive. Normally I try to
lessen the cost of a holiday and make the booking easier by travelling off
peak, but this is one location where that was impossible (unless I wanted to
take a very big risk on the weather) so I had to go in the peak period. I
did try and put together a diy package, but found getting hotel info outside
of Reykjavik difficult, and getting info about day trips from Reykjavik even
harder so I gave up and booked this package:
http://www.icelandholidays.com/clickhols/aroundiceland.htm(ignore the list
of stopping points, it is wrong but the map is correct). I booked for the
basis accommodation because I liked the exact stopping points better, but it
didn't actually work out that way as you will find out later.
Whilst I was there I discovered
www.grayline.is
who have a choice of self drives and have the selection of "long" day trips
that I was looking for, but I didn't manage to find this link before I went
(of course, if you insert the correct magic words into goggle it pops up as
link 3, but I didn't manage to guess these particular words). However their
"exchange rate" to Euro looks a right rip-off and you should pay in
Icelandic money (at the moment). Even so, tours are still expensive, didn't
actually use them so can't make any recommendations.
Anyhow, back to my booking. I have 7 days car hire in the smallest car, 7
nights accommodation in B&B style establishments and a return flight with
IcelandAir from LHR. Oh and they gave me really good (lonely planet) map,
which proves very useful.
Day 1: According to my ticket I have a 3 hour check in requirement at the
airport. I ignore that and make it 2. I am number 72 to check in so many
must do this! IcelandAir have a smaller carry on allowance than other
airlines, so I can't carry on my max sized roller bag and I have to check
it, carrying on a much smaller bag than I would have liked. I don't have
enough room for all my stuff [1] and have to wear my jumper and coat which
makes me look pretty stupid in the 30 degree heat when we leave, but I'm
sure that I will need them at the other end! They are also one of the many
supposedly "full service" intra European airlines that don't feed you in
economy (are there any left that do?) so I stock up in the lounge before I
leave, I'm sure that the choice on board is not going to be great (I am
right).
We depart on time at 13:00 and arrive at 15:00 (plus one hour on the clock).
Immigration for EU/EEA citizens is a non event and the luggage arrives
promptly so I go outside. There is one ATM and a mega mega queue for it. I
go to the car rental pick up and hope that the ATM queue will subside.
The rental queue is nearly as long and I can't avoid this. The rental is
with local company Bilaleiga Akureyrar who appear to be the local
incarnation of everybody except Hertz and Avis. After about 30 minutes I am
at the front. I get a standard Polo and am charged an extra 25 Euro for
"airport pick up (why is this not included in the package price, airport
pick up WAS the deal!) and decline the 10 Euro per day insurance excess,
though as the excess is a massive 1200 Euro, this might be the wrong
decision. I'm given another (less good) map, but which does show all the
roads that I'm not allowed to take my "normal" car on. If I do so, not only
is the insurance void, but it's also a driving offence if the police find
me. Note that they quote everything to me in Euro, even though the actual
charges are in ISK.
There are three types of roads in Iceland. Paved roads, unpaved roads that
I can drive on and unpaved roads that I can't drive on. All of the roads
around the edge are of the first two types (more of them later) and all of
the roads in the "interior" are of the latter type.
Back at the ATM and the queue is still 30 people long so I skip that and
collect my car. Instead of marking "damage" on the rental slip it is marked
on the car with little "reported damage" stickers. So when you are driving
around you can tell who has the rental cars as they are all covered in
stickers.
Drive downtown to my hotel, the Summa guesthouse. This is across the street
from Reykjavik's main attraction, the cathedral, and is in a good position
for the sights. But it's covered in scaffolding (the cathedral, not the
hotel) so that's one sight I'm missing out on. This guest house has all
standard of accommodation and I get the most basic room, with wash basin and
WC/bath (and microwave/fridge) across the hall shared with three other
rooms. The room is clean and comfortable, but it faces the main road and is
a bit noisy, but I guess that even the best rooms suffer from this. It has
a TV with a picture that is unwatchable, though as all three channels are in
Icelandic I wouldn't be able to watch it even if I could watch it, if you
get my meaning.
Walk the 600 metres down the hill into the centre of town and find an ATM..
Actually I have to find two as the first was not working. Extract 10,000
ISK (50 pounds). Explore the rest of the town centre. I've already been
primed to expect Europe's least interesting capital city so I am not
disappointed (though it doesn't exceed expectations either!). As I'm not up
for a full meal, buy a take away sandwich and a cake from the 24 hour shop
(or at least that's what I assume it's name implies).
After a couple of hours I go back to the hotel, read for a while and then go
to bed. It is, of course still light, but as we're less than 2 weeks after
the equinox and only 2 degrees from the artic circle, there is 24 hour
twighlight here.
Day 2: Breakfast starts at 7:00 and this hotel's speciality is its
home-made bread. Apart from that it is the simple choice of 2 types of cold
meat, one type of cheese, boiled eggs, 2 types of jam, butter, cereals,
yoghurt, fruit and milk. It's a bit basic, later I find out that this is a
good selection.
I'm up early and I thought that I would be one of the first out, but there
are lots of people up early. As I leave the hotel to get in my car I
realise that this is because they are on a day tour as I notice one picking
some people up.
Today's route is easy. I have to go to Skykkisholmur, which is only 2 hours
away around the "ring road" (even on the local bus). I have to make some
detours and the first is to the town of Akranes. There's an interesting old
town here. Well if there is, I failed to find it, unless it consists of two
houses! It's too early for the Information office to be open so I press on.
The second detour is to the village of Reykholt which the guide book
recommends as being of historic interest because some sagas were written
there. But it's not, it's completely modern. Look guys, a place isn't
interesting just because something happened there 1000 years ago. It's only
interesting if there some tangible evidence of that happening! From here
it's another 15 Km to a waterfall (Hraunfoss) so I have to do that. But
this only moderately interesting, not worth the full 120Km detour.
I'm finding the going tough today AND this is an easy (paved) road.
Icelandic roads are built on the top of embankments to make snow clearing
easier, but they are the narrowest width that they need to be for two lanes,
before the edge slides off down a steep (stone/gravel) embankment. You need
all your concentration to stay in lane and not drive off the road and that's
before you have to keep one eye on the speedometer so that you don't go
above the pathetic (but perhaps justifiable) 90Km limit. I need to stop for
a rest and even that is difficult. Outside the (few) towns, there is
nowhere to stop except at the prepared lay-byes and these can be 40 kms
apart. I have to stop twice for a nap today.
Final detour is to the end of the Snaefelness peninsular. This is much more
worthwhile, Very interesting and varied scenery, lots to see, definitely
worth the effort. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to drive my car up the
mountain road and I don't fancy hiking, so I give the glacier a miss, I
suspect (rightly) that there is easier to come.
Round on the north side of the mountain is a small museum with a traditional
grass house. It's been reconstructed and was only built in 1977. I'm
surprised to see that it's very damp inside. The sleeping area is on a
raised wooden floor and quite dry but the daytime living area is on bare
ground and didn't look too nice. I don't know if this is the norm for this
type of house or whether they didn't build it right, or perhaps this is
where they keep their animals? If you're basing yourself in Reykjavik, I
can recommend taking the Snaefelness tour.
Finally the town! (village) of Skykkisholmur. This has about 40 houses and
my hotel. It's the ferry port for the recommended island "Flatey" and it
seems that many of the visitors are just stopping off whilst waiting for the
next boat. You need a longer tour than the one that I'm on to do this
island.
The hotel is basic and simple and this time I do have a WC/shower, but no
TV. The TV is on the landing and it has an Icelandic channel and then, the
same Icelandic channel and then, ... After 15 "numbers", I'm confident that
I'm not going to find anything other than this one channel and turn it off.
I noticed on the road that the few "remote" petrol station are ...
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