Our tour today was to the Reykjanes Peninsula, the area to the west of Reykjavik. It was just Aaron and I and the guide who was very knowledgable and entertaining. This area is largely covered by lava fields in various stages of regeneration. The scenery is dramatic. Lava fields are an area covered by rock like material which is actually cooled lava. Various size mounds are scattered as far as you can see. Some areas are older cooled areas where moss has begun to...

An easy morning waiting for our 1pm tour to see the aftermath of the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano. Pronounced "a ya fat ga yo gul" - the volcano that caused so much disruption to air traffic over Europe in April 2010. We slept in then had a lazy breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It is raining quite heavily this morning so we hope that it improves for the tour. The weather in Reykjavik can change so quickly and be different here in the city to that in the...

Today's tour was called "Take a walk on the ice side", a journey to the frozen glacial tongue of Solheimajokull Glacier. We were picked up from the hotel at 9am by the very efficient Reykjavik Excursions and were soon on our way along the South Western coast. The weather was forecast to improve although it was overcast on the summit of the volcanos as we drove over the pass and descended to the coastal plain. The coastal strip has a lot of volcanic ash visible. T...

Today was the Great Circle Tour of about 7 hours departing at 9am. The area around Reykjavik is mostly snow covered volcanic rock strewn land. It is quite beautiful to see along with snow capped mountains and cloud hanging on what in some cases is a volcano. Reykjavik is a small city but has extensive infrastructure befitting a much large population. It is spread out with a hard to define central area. We foolishly dressed less today for some reason believing t...

A short nights sleep with an early rise at 1.30am and a taxi to the airport at 2am. It was to be a long day flying with 3 flights. We left Longyearbyen at 4am and 1.5 hours to Tromso and another 2 hours to Oslo. Passport control going into Tromso. Oslo International Airport was quite chaotic. We were fortunate that our luggage was checked right through to Reykjavik and although we had 1 hour it was a little rushed even without bags. We were nicely settled at th...