Tour of Iceland

I reached Iceland with my Fiat Tipo by ferry from Denmark (Hanstholm) after a stop in Torshavn to visit the Faroe Islands. Landing at Seydisfjordur and starting the tour of the island clockwise. What's beautiful about Iceland is the landscape one drives through, very varied: jagged coasts, glaciers, volcanoes, lava deserts, steaming lands. Moreover the territory is practically unspoilt because such a large island is inhabited only along the coast and only about 250,000 people live there. After the town of Hofn, a stop at the small lake Jokulsarlon where small icebergs break off. At Hof you leave the coast for the Skaftafell waterfalls, a jet of water plunging from an amphitheatre of basalt columns. A stop at a village with an unpronounceable name: Kirkjubaejarklaustur, passing through Vik, Skogar, Hella, Selfoss.

From Selfoss began the visit to the geologically most interesting area with the Gullfoss waterfalls and the Geysir. Thingvellir is instead a rift in the rock that should mark the boundary between Europe and America but is also the place where one of the oldest parliaments in the world met and where Lake Thingvallavatn is found. The capital Reykjavik, not far away, is modern and clean. In its small centre there's little to see: the shopping street, a small pond, the house where Gorbachev and Reagan met for the second time for the thaw between their two countries. Continuation north through rain and fog to the modern Akureyri, port and second city of the island. Then the Godafoss waterfall and the interesting area of Lake Myvatn surrounded by curious lava formations and small extinct volcanoes.

Further east, a visit to the Dettifoss waterfall in Jokulsargljufur National Park then, after a short stop at Egilsstadir, to Seydisfjordur to board the ferry that took me back to Denmark after a brief technical stop at Torshavn in the Faroe Islands. Of course during this long journey I also slept but I don't remember where. I had bought a prepaid package of overnight stays in guesthouses, the nicest of which was near Akureyri, a parish house next to the church and the small cemetery. I also remember sleeping two consecutive nights on Lake Myvatn near Reykjahlid. Absolutely not to be missed: Iceland as a whole.