Visit the Original Geysir and other Iceland Things to Do Tips

Strokkur emitting steam

This is the original Geysir - the one that has given its name to all others. An interesting fact is that there is only one Icelandic word used in the English language: geyser. There are several geothermal features and you can walk around and actually get pretty close to things. There is a lot of activity and different things to look at. The original Geysir no longer erupts but the geysir Strokkur, right next door, is very regular, going off every 10 minutes or so with a good show. I set my camera on sequence shooting and got a wonderful sequence of shots - shown here - where you can see the Strokkur with some steam, then Strokkur with this wonderful bubble, and then Strokkur when it explodes. I checked the time on my pictures - the last two (bubble and explosion) were 1 second apart.

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Things To Do: Botanic Garden in Iceland?

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 20, 2005

Akureyri Botanical Garden

Consider visiting the Akureyri Botanical Garden, in Akureyri, a very pleasant town in Iceland and by Icelandic standards, a relatively large town, with about 15,000 inhabitants. In fact it is the capital of northern Iceland and the second largest city in Iceland. The botanic garden is the one of the most northerly botanic gardens in the world and it is hard to imagine anything being more northerly. It is a beautiful garden with a nice variety of Icelandic native species and imported plants. It is quite surprising to see something so colorful in this environment. It has been a public garden since 1912 and a botanic garden since 1957. This splash of color is quite shocking after traveling though the barren, rugged and extremely beautiful landscape of Iceland.

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Address: Akureyri

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Things To Do: Visit Borgarfjordur-Eystri

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 20, 2005

Borgarfjordur-Eystri traditional

House

Very nice little seaside town with beautiful vistas, interesting folklore and wonderful birdwatching

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Things To Do: Boat trip near Breidafjordur

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 20, 2005

The lunch crowd happily devouring

innocent sea cre

This was a half-day boat trip around some islands off the NW coast of Iceland. The ship staff did a bottom scrape of the ocean floor and brought up all sorts of unusual things. Well it was lunch - yuck! People grabbed knives and started prying open all of these little sea creature shells and cutting out tender little morsels from here and there and popping them in their mouths. I on the other hand was just as quickly grabbing cute little star fish and sea anemonies and throwing them over board so they wouldn't get eaten. Luckily no one saw me do this.

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Things To Do: Visit the little chapels that are everywhere

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 20, 2005

Seydisfjordur Church

There are little chapels and churches everywhere in Iceland. They are very interesting and built on a small, intimate scale. They are quite different but all are beautiful and very simple. They are one of the most charming aspects of the built-landscape of Iceland. The interiors are all very colorful.

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Things To Do: Deildatunguhver Hot Springs

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 22, 2005

Deildatunguhver hot springs

by kathymof , 1 more photos

These were amazing hot springs - boiling water and steam were everywhere. There were several hot houses being warmed by this geothermal feature. A variety of vegetables were being grown in the hot houses.

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Things To Do: Dettifoss

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 22, 2005

Dettifoss from above

by kathymof , 3 more photos

This is a huge, beautiful and raging waterfall in Iceland. It is a must see. You can hike down to a viewing area (that you can also drive to) and from there hike out to the falls. You can get right up to the falls. The sound is overpowering. It gets pretty slipery the closer you get to the edge so consider this a safety warning as well. Very much worth the hike.

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Things To Do: Djuparlonssandur Black Sand Beach

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 22, 2005

Pebbles form beautiful patterns

along the beach

This is an isolated and beautiful black sand beach in Iceland. It is a short walk from a parking lot to the beach and there is a variery of plants to see on the walk to the beach. The pebbles on the beach form the most gorgeous patterns. There is also a colorful pond that can been seen while hiking to the beach.

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Things To Do: Active geology all over Iceland

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 22, 2005

Fissure of NoAmer & Euro plates

This is a group of pictures taken at one of the places where the North American Plate and the European Plate come together. There was a major quake in the area in the 1970's. Before that people were allowed to go into two subterranian pools to bathe but they became too hot after the quake and bathing in no longer permitted. You can see the steam coming off the water in one of my pictures. Iceland must be heaven for geologists!

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Things To Do: Geothermal development in Viti Area

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Written by kathymof

on Nov 22, 2005

Geothermal development in Viti area