"The Land of Sagas" Iceland by mayafly

Iceland is a bizarrely beautiful and awesome country. Whoever does marketing for Icelandair is a PR genius. When you combine these two things? A quick weekend stopover in Iceland that left me dying to come back for more.

These are a few of my favorite things about Iceland...
1. It's less than a five-hour flight from Boston.
2. If you fly Icelandair to/from Europe, you can build in a stopover in Iceland for free.
3. Reykjavik - Pretty painted houses, cute coffeeshops, hip Icelanders...
4. Tolkienesque landscapes -steamy geysers, volcanic craters, craggy ice-tipped mountains.
5. Geothermal energy - used to power everything from buses to greenhouses - did you know that Iceland is Europe's largest producer of bananas??
6. Amazing original copies of the Icelandic sagas on display in Reykjavik.
7. Thingvellir National Park - site of the world's first parliament (outdoors!) and one of two places in the world where you can witness continental drift in "action" (the other is the Rift Valley in Africa) as the North American and Eurasian plates slowly drift apart
8. The country is so small that people are listed by first name in the phonebook....even the president!
9. The Blue Lagoon - a naturally heated spa. For a little extra, the airport bus will take you to the spa and keep your bags for you while you soak for two hours. Then they pick you up and whisk you away, completely relaxed, to the airport...just in time for the flight home!

• Pros:Gorgeous, strange, small, friendly
• Cons:Extremely expensive!
• In a nutshell:A Blend of Unique Nature and Fascinating History