We set out for the airport for a long travel day. We left the house at 6 AM and will fly to Toronto for a seven hour layover. We were greeted with a beautiful sunrise and a one hour delay before our flight. We arrived in Toronto and took the metro train from the airport to the riverfront. We did a harbor cruise and had to get some poutine. Don’t know what the fest is about It wasn’t all that tasty. Back to the airport to continue our flights to Iceland, which will arrive at 10 AM.
We arrived at the airport, picked up our rental car and hit the road. I had to stop at Costco for new jeans. On our first flight I got a huge rip in my only pair I have on!
After Costco we came to Pingvellir National Park where we snorkeled tectonic plates in a large glacier water filled Fisure. The water is 32°F and absolutely crystal clear. The visibility is over 300 feet.
Our snorkel route took us along a larger deep fisher that has been here for many years below us, you can see some scuba divers at the bottom about 30 feet from us
We then curved around to the left and entered a lagoon with a soft sand bottom and no rock.
Between the main fisher and the lagoon is a smaller fisher that developed in 2008.
The park is surrounded by beautiful mountains on both sides and Icelands largest freshwater lake. 95% of the lakes water comes from a glacier. It travels 30 years through the water table before coming up into the bottom of the lake.
The landscape has many beautiful plants and flowers like the purple Wood Cranes-bill , and the smaller purple mother of thyme
This green flower budded plant looks like a miniature tree. It is called the Garden Angelica.
On one side of the park is a giant rock cliff called the wall. This is historical. During the Viking area this is where they made their center of government. The wall was used in the TV series Game of Thrones
We took this attractive wooden path through the meadow and passed lots of vegetation like this beautiful yellow Meadow Buttercup
The trail passes by glacial streams feeding in the lake its other 5% of volume. Again it is crystal clear water. This also may have been where one of their punishments was carried out, being drowned in a sack
After walking along the wall for a while and transversing up at its end, we made a U-turn and continued along the wooden boardwalk to a beautiful waterfall feeding the stream we previously saw.
We continue to walk along beautiful green fields with rock out croppings and colorful flowers
Much of the path we walk is lined by this bushy grass like plant known as the meadow horsetail
I spoke earlier of this large cliff faced wall as being the location of the Vikings parliamentary government center the flags at the base of this wall mark the most often used site
We’ve taken another trail which lead us to the top of the wall that I had talked about previously here you can see how large Lake actually is.
After snorkeling and exploring at the park, we checked in to our hotel and then went to the old Iceland restaurant where we had a fantastic meal
We went to “the ice bar“ it is inside of a giant walk-in freezer bar, and all the machines are made of ice with ice sculptures and ice hockey table. Serve drink of a cup made of ice.
