Today we toured around the Seyðisfjörður area, which provided breathtaking vistas of the fjords (once the fog lifted) and countless waterfalls cascading down the hillsides. We visited Egilsstaðir, then drove to Hallormsstaðaskógur, Iceland’s largest forest. From there, we looked at the third highest waterfall in Iceland, Hengifoss which eventually drains down into Lagarfljót, the third largest lake in Iceland. We also visited a small church which was once home to a carved wooden door from the 12th century, now housed in a museum. We also visited Skriðuklaustur, the mansion built by author Gunnar Gunnarson. Afterward we wound our way back down to Seyðisfjörður where we boarded our ship and departed Iceland. Tomorrow we will visit the Faroe Islands, stopping for the day in Tórshavn.

Yesterday we arrived in Ísafjörður and spent the morning walking around the town. We visited the Westfjords Maritime Museum near the harbor, then had lunch near the town center. After lunch we boarded a small boat which whisked us off to Vigur Island. Vigur Island is home to one family, a tiny post office, the only windmill in Iceland, along with thousands of Puffins, Arctic Terns, Eider Ducks, etc. We took a stroll around the island, before which we were handed sticks for use in scaring off the Arctic Terns which we were told were nesting and very aggressive. We laughed it off until we got near their nesting areas, at which point the terns took to divebombing us. There were hundreds of them coming at us all at once, like something out of a Hitchcock movie. I got pooped on twice — once in the face and once in the hair. After that we returned to port and boarded our ship and headed of for Akureyri, where we arrived this morning. Today we took a tour bus out of Akureyri and first stopped at Goðafoss, a powerful waterfall cutting through the countryside. Next up was a stop at the pseudo-craters along the shore of Mývatn. There we stopped for lunch of Mývatn trout before heading to Dimmuborgir, an area of beautiful lava formations and, apparently, the name of a Norwegian heavy metal band. After walking around Dimmuborgir, we headed to the nearby Námaskarð, where hot gasses and sulphur belch out of the ground in a surreal, martian landscape. Finally we stopped by the Mývatn Nature Baths where naturally heated water is used to make a public bath where people can enjoy soaking in the warm water. We took a quick tour of Akureryi on our way back to the ship, where I sit writing this. Tomorrow we will be in Seyðisfjörður, our last stop in Iceland.

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.

Arrived outside of Heimaey this morning and took the ship’s tender into port. After grabbing a quick bite at a cafe, we strolled around the small town and walked up on the lava field that covered most of the town during the surprise volcanic eruption in 1973. The eruption started around 2 AM and lava quickly rolled downhill toward the town. Luckily the entire fishing fleet happened to be in the harbor and the entire population was able to safely evacuate before the town was completely covered in molten lava. Now there is a park of sorts atop the lava flow where they’ve marked the locations of streets and buildings deep underneath the rock. After our stroll, we boarded a tourbus which took around to see islanders practicing rope swinging. Apparently rope swinging was used in years past to harvest eggs from bird nests high in the cliffs that make up most of the coast of the island. Today it is more of a sport enjoyed by teenagers. Next we drove along the coast and up to a puffin colony where we were fortunate enough to spot several of the small birds before continuing on to the Heimaey airport, where a flight to mainland Iceland takes less than 5 minutes. (Interestingly, that is not the shortest scheduled airplane flight in the world. That distinction belongs to a flight between two of the Orkney islands which clocks in at just over two minutes one way, and just under two minutes the other.) Next we hiked up to the caldera of the volcano that buried the town for fine views of the lava field below and most of the island. After returning to the ship, we sailed by Surtsey, the youngest island in the world. Surtsey is an island of about 1 square mile which rose out of the sea as a result of an undersea volcanic eruption in 1954. It has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as such is not accessible to any but a few scientists who study the migration of plant and animal life onto the new island. Ordinarily no one is allowed within a two mile radius of the island, but our ship was able to pass within half a mile of the island, affording us a close-up look at it.

Since leaving London Monday, we’ve been mostly out to sea. Yesterday we made our first landfall in the Orkney town of Kirkwall. We first took a bus tour of Scapa Flow, two stone circles, Skara Brae, and Skaill house. After the bus tour, Shelly and I went into Kirkwall to have a walk about. There we toured the Orkney Wireless Museum, St. Magnus Cathedral, Orkney Museum, Bishop’s Castle, and Earl’s Castle and had a bite for lunch before returning to the ship for departure. Currently we’re enroute to Heimaey, a small island off the southern coast of Iceland, where we are scheduled to arrive early tomorrow morning. While I do have internet access here on board the ship it is slow and expensive, so I probably won’t be able to upload any additional pictures until we’re back on land in Paris.

We started the day with a delightful full English breakfast served by our congenial hosts at the Glendale House, which consisted of cereal, coffee and tea, orange juice, toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, grilled tomato, and fried toast. Needless to say, lunch was pretty much an afterthought. After finishing our breakfast and saying our goodbyes, we headed over to the small train station in Goathland. (Pronounced like a place you’d expect to find Marilyn Manson acolytes, though none were in evidence.) Apparently that station was a train station in one of the Harry Potter movies, though having not seen any of them I can’t be sure. Goathland was also the set for some English TV drama called “Heartbeat” and the town is littered with memorabilia from the show. But back to the train station — we took a ride on the train up to Grosmont and back which took us through some scenic parts of the North Yorkshire Moors. After returning to the station in Goathland we struck out south where we stopped to admire the ruins of an old church and castle in Pontefract. The castle was where Richard II was killed. Next we stopped at the Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe, which was the childhood home of Isaac Newton. That turned out to be a pretty cool place to visit — they had found drawings on the walls suspected to have been done by Newton, and the apple tree (yes, THAT apple tree) still grows in front of the house. From there we made our way the rest of the way back south into London…and that’s when the trouble started. We’ve been using GPS + Microsoft Mappoint for directions which has always served us well. The problem is that the streets of London are in various states of disrepair and construction which the GPS just doesn’t know about. Further complicating matters is that street signs, if they exist, are placed pretty much willy-nilly somewhere in the general vicinity of the street corner, but not necessarily anywhere conspicuous. I’m sure you can imagine by now we had more than a little trouble finding our way back through the city to the rental office to drop off the car. My advice? Rent a car at the airport so you don’t have to drive in the city. That ordeal behind us, we checked into our hotel and then had a delcious dinner at a place called “Grumbles” a few blocks from the hotel. Tomorrow we hop on our cruise ship which will take us to the Orkneys, the Faroes, Iceland, and the Shetlands before dropping us back in London. Pictures from today are uploading now.

‘Twas the best of days, ’twas the worst of days. Thankfully more of the former. Our day today started with a visit to the Iron Bridge in, well, Iron Bridge. Constructed in 1779, it’s a very old example of what was then a very new bridge building technology. From there we drove to Snowdonia Natl. Park in Wales, which is like something out of Lord of the Rings. Who knew there were mountains in England? Sadly I took but a scant few pictures in the area as the roads were all narrow and winding with very few places to pull off for pictures. Our destination in Snowdonia was the Snowden Mountain Railway which is a cog railway that takes you to the top of the tallest mountain in England. Hours of being stuck behind large tour buses slowly plying their way along the mountain roads left us well behind schedule for the day and when we discovered that the aforementioned tour buses had also sold out all of the tickets until the 3:30 train we realized we had no choice but to pass on the chance to ride to the top. We consoled ourselves with the thought that there wouldn’t be much of a view from the top today anyway because of the overcast weather and low clouds, but I hate to miss out on a train ride. So, heavy of heart but anxious to continue our day’s journey we headed north along the beautiful Irish Sea before tacking northeast towards the North Yorkshire Moors. Our ultimate destination for the evening was our hotel in Goathland in the heart of the Moors, but we first dropped in for dinner and a stroll in Whitby on the North Sea coast. For dinner we popped in for fish and chips at The Magpie Cafe where I FINALLY got the fish ‘n’ chips and mushy peas I’ve been trying to get since first landing at Heathrow. We both got the “small” portion which was still overindulgently massive. I happened to catch a glimpse of the “regular” size fish and chips as it was walked by our table and believe it is safely a feast for 3. After Shelly rolled me out of the Magpie, we walked off some our dinner with a stroll along the wharf and pier in Whitby just after sunset. Pictures are uploading now, will likely be up by the time anyone reads this post. Tomorrow we ride the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, visit a couple old castles, and finally stop at Woolsthorpe Manor, boyhood home of Isaac Newton before heading back to London for the night.

I’ll say this…learning to drive a right-drive car while learning to drive on the left side of the road is probably not best done while trying to navigate the streets of London. But somehow I made it out of the city and into the countryside where it suddenly got much easier. At least I had the sense to rent an automatic. So, after a nerve-wracking, swerve-inducing run through the windy streets of Westminster we head out towards our first stop, Stonehenge. We’d heard that you couldn’t get close to it and that it kinda sucked, but I’m here to tell you — don’t believe it. You can’t walk right up and among the rocks and touch them or anything, but you are able to get plenty close and it is an undeniably impressive work of early man. It’s also, a bit surprisingly, all of 100 yards off of a major highway. After gawking in awe at Stonehenge, we head to the decidedly more low-key Silbury Hill, the largest prehistoric burial mound in Europe. Like Stonehenge, you can’t climb on it, but it is nonetheless quite something to look at. From there we made a short drive over to Avebury and the Avebury Stone Circle. The comparisons to Stonehenge are inevitable. The rocks are generally smaller, but there are more and the circle is much, much bigger. Plus you can walk around it, touch the stones, etc. After strolling around the quaint little town of Avebury, we struck of for the Chedworth Roman Villa, which is an excavation site where they’ve discovered a Roman style villa. Some very impressive tilework made for a very cool stop. After that we checked in at the beautiful Alveston Manor before catching a Royal Shakespeare Society production of “As You Like It” in Stratford-on-Avon. Internet is about to shut off, so that’s all for today. Pictures are up.

The trip did not get off to an auspicious beginning. Our flight out of Cincinnati was delayed an hour, which meant we couldn’t make our connecting flight from Philly to London. So we got put on a flight to Heathrow that left Philly 5 hours after our original flight was to have taken off. Of course that meant 5 hours less to spend in London, but what can you do? Naturally, that flight wound up being delayed too, so we didn’t end up leaving Philly until a little after 1AM, which got us into London at around 1PM GMT. So, half a day in London shot. Still, we were able to take a “hop on, hop off” bus tour and hit the highlights: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square…not too shabby. Disappointingly because of the late hour we weren’t able to go in Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London but we were able to walk around the exteriors at least. After freshening up we headed to a nearby pub for a pint and fish and chips. Disappointingly the fish and chips were nothing to write home about and the peas weren’t mushy. So my quest for the quintessential British meal will continue. Tomorrow we rent a car and head out into the countryside on our way to Stratford-on-Avon where we’ll see the Royal Shakespeare Society put on As You Like It. Pictures are up and available at http://andrewcruse.com/photos/gallery/europe2009/.