ice ice iceland

For my 30th birthday, I decided to treat myself to a holiday in Iceland... a long weekend of spas, waterfalls and the Northern Lights... sounds perfect! Thanks me! I let Joe tag along too.

We took the early morning flight into Reykjavik and went straight to the Blue Lagoon from the airport. There really is no better way to spend a beautiful winter morning than to soak in a geothermal spa.

See that cube to the right? That's a bar! You could just float over and get a beer (which is charged to your bracelet.) Ingenious!

 Ahh... to just float along without a care in the world... To make the experience more luxurious, there are these buckets of silicon mud around (and at the bottom of the spa) which you could slather on your face. I saw later at the airport shop that they're selling a tube of these mud mask for about 40 pounds! Should have bottled some myself!

We spent a whole afternoon there, alternating between spa, sauna, and steam bath, and left feeling quite relaxed.

That night we went on a Northern Lights tour. It was cold and quite tiring, and we didn't end up seeing anything as the cloud cover was too thick :(

Never mind! The next day it was onto the "Golden Circle" tour - which covered the major natural sights close to Reykjavik. Our first stop was a massive crater with a frozen lake. You could see waves under the frozen ice, it's pretty cool...

It was also very windy and freaking cold up there.

Onward to see some waterfalls...

and geysirs.. The very active Strokkur geysir erupts every couple of minutes, which is great for us tourists chumps.

We were standing camera ready for a good 10 minutes waiting to get a good shot of me with an erupting geysir.

They used to cook food in these geysirs... Mmm sulfuric!

 Joe the anarchist.

Next was the spectacular Gullfoss waterfall, which is formed of two converging waterfalls.

Did I mention it was damn freezing?

Iceland sits between the North American and the Eurasian plate. These plates are actually drifting apart from one another, which is why Iceland is so rich with volcanic activities. This is the valley between the two continental plates.. so called "no man's land".

The drifting apart of the plates carves up valleys and ridges in the landscape. You could say this is like the border between Europe and America.. (kinda)

 That shimmering in the stream is coins people have thrown in for good luck (or something)

Some awesome scenery here... 

Apart from being the boundary of the continental plates, this place is also historically significant as it was where the oldest parliament (formed by the first settlers of Iceland) in the world convened in the 10th Century.

On our last day in Reykjavik we decided to look around town - starting with the Sun Voyager sculpture in the centre of town - it is an "ode to the sun", facing out to sea.

We stopped by the Cathedral to gawk at its towering modernist architecture. Inside, the vibe is very tranquil and comfortable.. all muted pastels, soft edges and rounded corners. Comfy padded pews too.

 View of the city from the Cathedral tower.

 View of us at the Cathedral tower

Across from the Cathedral is Loki Cafe where we had a taste of Icelandic cuisine. We weren't adventurous enough to try the fermented (rotten) shark, and settled instead for cod and egg on rye bread, smoked lamb, soup, and rye bread ice-cream.  All quite delicious, though the rye bread ice-cream was a standout.

The rest of the day we spent at the Laugardalslaug swimming pool. We've got no photos of the pool, but it is seriously the best value fun you could have in Reykjavik (the entry ticket is less than three pounds!)  It is equipped with an Olympic sized pool, a couple of smaller pools, a 38C seawater pool, and four hot tubs from 38 to 44C. Oh and there is a giant water slide! All pools but one are outdoors and geothermal heated to various warmness. It was truly the best way to spend a freezing (-4C), snowy day!  I soaked in the hot tubs until I got quite hot, then I did a few laps in the swimming pool, followed by a few turns down the water slide, and then it was back to the hot tubs to repeat the cycle.

And before we knew it, it was getting dark. We ate some hot dogs and took a bus back to hotel.

On the way back we saw a bubble tea cafe.. even in Iceland!

In the end, even though we tried all three nights, we didn't end up seeing the Northern Lights. But we had such a great time touring the beautiful scenery and soaking in the geothermal pools.  Perhaps we'll be back again someday, and try our luck again with those tricky Northern Lights.

sorrento & the amalfi coast

We had just three days for Pompeii & the Amalfi coast.. so much to do so little time! We based our stay in the town of Sorrento, at the start of the Amalfi coast. There wasn't much to do in Sorrento but I enjoyed strolling through the highstreet in the evening. 

The town gets top marks for being Christmassy!

Our hotel overlooks this ravine which has a beautiful abandoned building inside it. There are stairs down the side of the cliff-face and a bridge connecting the cliff-face to the building, everything was quite overgrown and abandoned. It looked very beautiful and rather mysterious. At night it also looked haunted & a bit creepy.

We hired a car for the Amalfi coast. The whole road hugs the coast, and driving along the narrow and windy roads was a bit unnerving sometimes. Our GPS kept getting confused and many times it thought we were in the sea. The weather was great but and the views spectacular! 

We went searching for the "Footpath of the Gods" - a hiking trail near Positano. Unfortunately our navigation skills (and our Internet) failed us and we couldn't find it - but our walk took us to some nice vantage points anyway.

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We did meet this friendly dog.

After abandoning our search for the Footpath of the Gods, we drove to the town of Amalfi where we had a little picnic on the beach.

Amalfi is quaint and village-y but also very touristy.  The major tourist attraction is this cathedral which annoyingly closed at 3pm in winter - just as we were about to go in.

Cool little fountain in Amalfi.

Back in Sorrento - for dinner we found this popular pizzeria where we had some fairly mediocre pizzas on our first night. We realised though that pretty much every Italian at the restaurant was eating just prosciutto with mozzarella cheese and pizza bread. So the next night we came back and ordered that. Wow what a simple but absolutely delicious combination that was! 

And that concluded our Italy trip! Short (well, for me) but sweet!

pompeii

I flew in to Naples to meet Joe for a few days in Sorrento & the Amalfi coast. Top of the agenda was Pompeii - one of those gruesome biblical-like places that I've heard about as a child, and have always wanted to visit. This prosperous Roman town was buried in 25 metres of ash and rock by a sudden eruption of the volcano Mt Vesuvius about two thousand years ago. Much of the town is still well preserved.

Only when we got there did I realise just how big the place actually is! It seems obvious now but not everyday do you visit a tourist attraction that covers an ENTIRE city!  We were literally walking in a ghost town - complete with government buildings, temples, theatres, bathhouses, and an ampitheatre, and lots and lots of streets & houses.

In the streets of Pompeii, every few metres or so there are these huge stepping stones built into the road linking the sidewalks. Pompeii did not having a proper stormwater drainage system, and hence when it rained, the roads would flood - requiring the sidewalks to be raised and connected by these stepping stones.

There are two theatres in town - this is the bigger of the two.

A rather marvelous looking house with some wonderful mosaic tiling...

... including this "beware of the dog" mosaic at the entrance to the house

Yep, that is what you think it is... a penis shrine!

When Pompeii was excavated, the archaeologists found within the depths of hardened volcano ash, these empty voids with human bones in them. These voids were formed when Pompeii's victims, buried in volcano ash, decomposed while the ash hardened around their shape - preserving the victims' forms. One archaeologist had the bright idea of pouring plaster into these voids to create plaster body casts. Some of the casts contain a surprising amount of details - you could see the folds in the fabric of the victim's clothing, and the shape of the sandal on their feet. Creepy!

Can't remember what this building was for, but it has a very nice ceiling.

Wall murals in a rich person's house.

Pompeiiens loved to bathe and there were a few bath-houses in town.

Details of a marble bath.

The wall of the bath-house change room

This is probably a market/shop that sold hot food - the food are cooked and kept warm in those holes in the benches.

Pompeii's ampitheatre

Overlooking Pompeii from the edge of town. My feet were dying by the time we walked from one side of town to the other.

The sun setting near the main area of the town, which contained the government buildings and temples.

I highly recommend going to Pompeii in late autumn/winter - as we did. The temperature was mild and the crowd thin. (I imagine the atmosphere is probably less than "ghost-town-like" during the peak summer season) Comfortable walking shoes are also highly recommended. Also, the novel "Pompeii" by Robert Harris is a good one to get into the feel of the last days of Pompeii.