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This morning we left the boat in Reykjavík and boarded a bus tour of the “Golden Circle” which is basically a circuit of the top tourist attractions in the Reykjavík area. Our first stop was Þingvellir the site of the first Icelandic parliament, founded in 930 AD. It is also the site where the North American tectonic plate meets the Eurasian, as can be seen by the large rift valley on the site. It also happens to be a beautiful area, with small waterfalls and streams emptying into the adjacent Þingvallavatn, the largest lake in Iceland. From there we moved on to Haukadalur, a geologically active area home to two famous geysers, Geysir and Strokkur. Geysir erupts infrequently, about once every 10 days, so weren’t fortunate enough to see it spew, but Strokkur goes off every few minutes so we were able to watch it erupt several times during our time in Haukadalur. Next we went to the nearby Gullfoss waterfall, which was simply amazing. As an added bonus, there was a rescue crew practicing rescue techniques while we were there and they had strung up ropes across the falls and were sending men back and forth across. Our final stop before returning to Reykjavík was the Nesjavellir geothermal power station which uses the superheated water found just below the surface to generate steam driving large steam turbines, generating about 45 MW of power at that single station. Upon returning to Reykjavík, we stopped at the Perlan, a grouping of water towers with a large glass dome and revolving restuarant on top. Sounds weird, but it’s a spectacular piece of architecture. From there we drove through the old city center and went by Höfði, the house where Gorbachev and Reagan met for the Icelandic Summit, before returning to the ship for the evening. Tomorrow we’ll be in Ísafjörður where we hope to walk around the town a bit in the morning before taking a boat ride out to Vigur Island in the afternoon.
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