Scandinavia

A love letter to Iceland

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Iceland deserves a last word.

Two weeks traveling throughout Denmark, Norway and Sweden ended with a couple of days in Iceland en route home. Looking back on those two days, they are packed with charged memories. Perhaps I’ve said too often here that I fell in love with the country. Is two days enough to know it’s love?

Hot springs. Glaciers. Waterfalls. Mountains. Geysers. Roads heading to the horizon with no other living creatures in sight, except for the sheep. Winds coming off the North Atlantic so pure and fresh that they filled your body with wonder. Stunning public art. Music so ethereal that the sounds gave me chills. Skyr (seriously, why can’t I get this in Halifax?). And the hotdogs, those glorious hotdogs.

As a traveler, I endeavour to see everything I need to see in a place because there’s so much more left to see in this world, that I assume I’ll never make it back to the same place again. Not so with Iceland. I need to see more of it, taste more of its food (except for the hákarl, once was enough for that), see more of its art and listen to more of its music.

Iceland, you had me at hello, warmed my heart throughout my visit, repeatedly took my breath away over two days and left me longing to see you again. Thanks for the indelible mark you have left on me.

Until we see each other again…

Last day in Reykjavik

/ Greg / Leave a comment

All good things must come to an end.  Waking in Reykjavik for the last day in a country I’ve fallen madly in love with, I don’t want to leave.  I want more time in Iceland, and I don’t want our Scandinavian adventure to come to an end.

All wishing aside, we have a 6pm flight, so have almost a full day to explore Reykjavik.  After a leisurely breakfast, we walk up a small hill from our hotel toward one of the iconic buildings in the town – Hallgrímskirkja:

Hallgrímskirkja Continue reading →

A day trip for the ages – Iceland’s Golden Circle

/ Greg / 5 Comments

Normally toward the end of a two week trip, my energy is starting to fade just a bit.  Not so on the second to last day of this trip.  I’m awake early, and among the first to grab breakfast in the dining room of our Reykjavik hotel.  I can’t get to the car rental place fast enough.  Today we’re doing a driving tour of Iceland’s “Golden Circle”

Leaving Reykjavik, there are clouds in the sky with a forecast promising a sunny day a few hours ahead.  With no trouble at all, we find our way out of the city and onto highway 36 to make our way to Þingvellir National Park.   We decided on the self-tour/rental car approach so we could do this trip at our own pace.  About 10-15 minutes after turning onto highway 36, we’re glad we did.  We pull off the highway for the first of what would be a few stops like this.  There is an open vista and a field of balanced rock sculptures done by visitors:

Continue reading →

The Blue Lagoon and Reykjavik hotdogs

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A month and a half after returning home, I still get goosebumps thinking back on arriving in Reykjavik for the start of two days in Iceland.   In planning our itinerary, we figured a good first taste of this country after a four hour flight was a stop at the Blue Lagoon.  It was a perfect day for a visit here: sunny, 13°C.  My slightly weary travel body melted as I entered the lagoon:

Blue LagoonIn no time, the hot water took out the kinks of four hours spent in economy class. Noticing a bar just off to one side of the lagoon, I had my first Gull beer which really put me at ease.  It may have been the best tasting beer ever – the location definitely had something to do with that. Continue reading →

Arriving in Iceland

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Expectations can be a funny thing. Grounded in fear or excitement of something unknown or somewhat unpredictable, they can cloud or enhance the experience to which you’ve attached them. Getting on the plane from Bergen to Reykjavik, I’m terribly excited.  Kid at Christmas excited. My expectations for this last leg of the trip are sky high. While the Scandinavian trip has been outstanding so far, for me, one of the things that sealed the choice for this year’s big trip was the two days we would be spending in Iceland.

When I was much younger, during the Christmas season you would see flocks of Icelanders wandering through Mic Mac Mall. They came to my hometown to do their Christmas shopping because of the purchasing power they had compared to the inflated costs at the time in their country. As a kid, I was struck by how different the people looked – so elegant, so well dressed – and how cool their accents sounded. At that time in my mind, Iceland was an almost mythical place.

Fast forward to me sitting on a plane to Reykjavik, and Iceland is still mythical to me. My Icelandair plane is named after one of their volcanoes (Katla).  I have a bottle of Icelandic glacier water. I’m listening to the in flight Icelandic music channel and the ethereal quality to the music is igniting my excitement.   I’m hours away from landing, and yet I feel like I’ve already arrived.

All of the reading I’ve done and photos I’ve seen can’t capture what I’ll experience in the two days that lay ahead of me. I’ll try to express in a few posts coming up the beauty and the magic that so deeply touched me in Iceland.

The expectations were high.

Wandering through Bergen

/ Greg / 2 Comments

Bergen is a great town through which to wander.  Over the course of our three days there, we took a slower pace than earlier in our trip to take in the sights of this quaint town.  Here are some of the more notable things we saw on our stay.

Bryggen – A UNESCO world culture heritage site, this area of Bergen is its oldest, dating back to around the mid 1300s.  Due to many fires, there’s a mix of newer and older buildings with some cellars here dating back to the 15th century.  Even the reconstructed buildings are faithful to the originals.   They are beautiful buildings whose angles (few of which are perfect 90 degrees as you can see) add to the charm:

Bryggen Continue reading →

The price of eating in Norway

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I’ve been to a few expensive places in which to travel over the past couple of years (Zurich, I’m looking at you), but nothing really prepared me for the cost of eating in Norway.  In other costly cities – Paris, New York, Milan, I’ve had no trouble finding great economical places to eat where I felt I got a taste of the location.  Not so in Norway.  Seth Kugel, the New York Times “Frugal Traveler” put it best when he recently wrote:

Norway is the extreme Scandinavian case, though — the only country I’ve ever been in where I suffered from constant, low-grade budget anxiety. On the opposite end is Sweden, which, if you come directly from Norway, feels like you’ve entered a 173,300-square-mile Costco.

Traveling is about the memories – being a couple of accountants, we budget for trips so we’re not thinking about money while away.  With that planning we saved our travel dollars for the cuisine of Iceland laying ahead in our travels and quickly labeled Norway as a place where we’d live off of grocery store food for a few days.  This was our first supper in Bergen, and still clocked in at around $20:

Supper Continue reading →

A day trip to remember – Norway’s fjords

/ Greg / 5 Comments

The 11th day of our Scandinavian trip had us waking up in quaint Bergen.  We selected Bergen as a home base for the ease of a spectacular day trip to explore Norway’s famous fjords – in particular the Nærøyfjord and Aurlandsfjord arms of the Sognefjord.

Despite ominous weather forecasts, as we leave Bergen on a train en route for Voss, the weather is holding and looking positive.  Here’s a view out of the train window about 20 minutes outside Bergen:

From the train just after leaving Bergen Continue reading →

Bergen. First stop: Fløyen

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A little over a week into our Scandinavian adventure, we board a quick flight from Stockholm to Bergen, Norway.  It’s a very clear day (something that apparently is a bit of a rarity for Bergen), so we have a wonderful view of the town as we land at the airport about 30 minutes outside the centre.  The clear day (and an ominous weather forecast for the rest of our stay in this coastal town) and the view from the plane inspired us to make a beeline to the top of Fløyen mountain.  A short funicular ride from virtually the centre of Bergen puts this panoramic view on display:

Fløyen mountain Continue reading →