We had another big breakfast and did a little more walking around the island of Heimaey on Tuesday morning, then boarded the noon ferry back to the Icelandic "mainland." Our car was none the worse for having sat in the parking lot for forty-eight hours — except for a light coating of black dust blown by the wind from the nearby black sand beach.
We drove back westward and stopped for lunch in the town of Selfoss — the childhood home of Bjork and the site of Bobby Fischer's grave — and then turned northward along the Olfusa River to Thingvellir National Park. It's a glorious natural location — a wide rift valley with snow-capped mountains looming off to the north, and the waters of Thingvallevatn lake in the center of it all. I'll let Sir William Jackson Hooker describe the lake:
"A brighter atmosphere now permitted us to catch a glimpse of the neighbouring scenery; and the first thing that drew our attention was the immense Lake of Thingevalle just before us, of which we had hitherto seen nothing, except the margin. It is reckoned fifteen miles long, and from five to twelve miles wide. Near the middle are two fine black insulated rocks, of considerable size and height; the largest called Sandey, the smaller one Nesey, upon which, thousands of the black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus L. Svart Bakr Isl.) annually rear their young. North and south of this lake, were some grand rugged mountains, but at a considerable distance from the place in which we were, and mostly covered with snow."
We parked at the visitor center and walked down to the Thingvellir historic site. This was the old meeting-place of the Althing, Iceland's original parliament, which met there until just a decade or so before Sir William's visit in 1809. There's no longer a town at the site, just a replica of the old church — and a summer cottage for the Prime Minister of Iceland. That's it. One hopes the P.M. remembers to fill the trunk with groceries and beer before going on vacation, because the nearest package store is thirty miles away.
The landscape at Thingvellir is pure Iceland — a marshy braided river flowing into the lake, but also volcanic chasms filled with glacial snowmelt. Sir William noticed them on his visit:
"When we got here, we looked down into an immense plain, which was every where intersected by chasms in the earth as far as the eye could reach, crossing each other in various directions, though most of them were reat (sic) from east to west: three in particular seemed to extend, in uninterrupted lines, the whole width of the plain, and were terminated on one side by the lake Thingevalle."
All in all, an amazing spot.
I wondered why the Althing met in such a remote and hard-to-reach place, but after looking at maps and reading Sir William's account of trying to get around in Iceland before paved roads, I realized that Thingvellir is among the more accessible locations in Iceland. If you're coming from the lowlands to the south, you can just ride right up the rift valley or even take a boat up the river and across the lake. From the west, there's a pass through the mountains to Reykjavik. Travelers from the northwest of Iceland could go by boat to Reykjavik and follow the same route. I don't know how anyone from the east coast got anywhere; I assume they had to brave the seas and then go upriver.
After a couple of hours admiring the beauty of Thingvellir, we got back in our car and drove to Reykjavik. It's not far, really — just 47 kilometers, or about 30 miles, and as I said, there's a pass through the mountains. It is, however, one of the dreariest places I passed through in Iceland. Oh, sure, there's magnificent mountains on either side, but the valley itself is just an endless expanse of grass and rocks.
Sir William didn't think much of it, either:
"From this place, till we got to the banks of the Lake of Thingevalle, nothing interesting occurred. The country, through which we passed, consisted either of a dreary moor, over which large masses of rock were every where scattered, or of a disagreeable morass, into which our horses every now and then sunk up to their bellies."
But after half an hour of driving we crested one last hill and saw the bustling modern city of Reykjavik and its suburbs before us. There's almost no transition between wilderness and city — chiefly because there aren't any farms to speak of.
With the help of our onboard GPS we navigated through Reykjavik to the old city center. And I do mean the center: our hotel was the historic Hotel Borg, on Austurvollur square, next to the cathedral church and the current Althing building. Like most things in Iceland, they are quite modest. The cathedral is a nice little clapboard church, and the Althing looks like a pre-World War I American high school built of lava blocks.
The Borg Hotel itself is very comfortable, with a cool Art Deco aesthetic. I suspect that it went through a period of unfortunate "modernization" in the Sixties and Seventies, and the current owners are restoring the interiors to their original glory. The hotel was founded by Johannes Josefsson, who the hotel Web site describes as a "strong-man and adventurer." He wrestled in the Olympics and toured with the Barnum & Bailey circus, but in 1927 he retired back to Iceland and built the country's swankiest hotel.
We had dinner at a seafood place around the corner, as the Borg's own restaurant was being renovated while we were there (I understand it's due to re-open soon). And with that, it was off to bed.
Next time: Dill!
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