“Greenland is icy and Iceland is Green”

. . . said Steven as I asked him for a quote to start this holiday blog. 

Yes we are continuing our theme of going to countries starting with an “I” and our post Pesach adventure this year is to Iceland. We were supposed to have booked this trip on our return from South Africa at the end of March 2020, but a virus and a global pandemic prevented us. 4 years later, we are off to drive Iceland’s ring road. The scenery is supposed to be stunning. As its summer we know the scenery won’t be as dramatic without all the snow and ice, but we feel safer driving without all of that to contend with and at least there will be some daylight. 

This is a very different holiday and we feel that we are well prepared.  As well as numerous printed books (thank you Lucy and Simon), YouTube has been our friend.  It’s going to be cold despite being summer. On a good day it gets to a mighty 15ºC. As we’ve been to the Arctic we’ve got the fleeces and the thermals already. It’s also going to be very wet and even my camera now has its own raincoat! Who knew there were review sites dedicated to blackout eye masks, and we now have one each. Given the 20 hours of daylight some advise its best to sleep during the day and be out at night as there are less crowds. I’ll let you know how that goes, if it happens!

The huge, and I mean huge, map of Iceland (thank you again Lucy and Simon) is now marked up and carefully folded and packed, along with the large bottle of ribena (permitted as its a “cold holiday”) and our driving licences. Hiring a car in advance for your travels abroad and leaving the driving licence in Leeds is not recommended but we’ve been there done that and got the T-shirt and are still married!

As most areas are quite remote I’m hoping that we won’t need to add to Steven’s “osteopaths around the world contact list”. As he is in control of our travel, and hence sitting, he will stop and stretch whenever he wants. No, I’ve not mentioned that previously, would make a good blog in its own right though . . .

You can follow us by the map below as there will be a new marker for each new post. If you see us “miraculously” travelling over water its because Iceland is made up of many bridges and tunnels! You can zoom in and move around to see more details on the map. The round markers are where we stay and the flags (⚑) are day trips. Any marker that is red has a post associated with it, so click on it. Details of day trips may be in the post associated with the place we stay.