Category: Travel

The Waterfall that Everybody Goes to See – Kirkjufellfoss, Iceland

Ever since I started wandering around Iceland, two of my favorite book series have kept popping into my mind. The landscape reminds so much of both of them, and I wonder if it somehow did not play in the inspiration of one of the series. That series would be The Lord of the Rings. There are some paths carved into the hills that remind me of the wastelands that Frodo and Sam would have had to cross before they ran into Gollum. The other series would be The Song of Ice and Fire, but this is because a lot of the scenes beyond the Wall were filmed in this location for the famous television series based on these books called, The Game of Thrones.

This has been a phenomenon lately with tourist locations. Fans of the show will travel to the various locations so they can witness these spots for themselves. The Skellig Islands off the coast of Ireland are popular now because of Star Wars filmed there. People no longer travel to New Zealand for just its beauty, but because they want to follow in the footsteps of the Fellowship. And Iceland has become a destination spot because of Game of Thrones.

One of the biggest stops along the tour is Kirkjufell. It may not look familiar in these pictures to those of you who have watched the show, but imagine it covered in snow, and then think about the background when the crows were wandering beyond the Wall and you will realize that it is there a lot of the time. I think it looks a little like Gandolf’s hat, but despite its connection to either of these fantasy giants, it is an impressive sight.

It is not only this iconic mountain that brings flocks of tourists to this spot, but the ideal place to get a picture of it is next to this impressive waterfall, Kirkjufellfoss. In fact, more people cluster around this spot to get pictures of the gallons of water rushing over the side. I know that there are many waterfalls that I will run into on this trip, but this being the first one that I was able to get close to, I was impressed by his sheer magnitude. It is also one of those things that can dramatically change in a different season.

The way that this country tickles my imagination makes it one of the best exploration vacations I have ever experienced. I can see why people make it out here to try and grab a part of one of their favorite television shows, but I can also see how it could have been the inspiration for some of my favorite stories. The best part of it is that just by being out here, I am getting to create my own stories to tell, and for anybody, that is enough reason to take the trip this far north, no matter the season. There will always be worth something to experience.

A Happy Camper

I wanted to test the love of my marriage, so I decided to travel around Iceland in a small van for two weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

There is a certain sense of Romanticism that is associated with this idea. You will get to share this tiny space with the one that you love. Everything you need is located in some crook or cranny, and the grassy lawn that you park next to will become your living room for the evening. During the day, you will get to travel around this amazing country, looking at the amazing landscape and enjoying the hikes while you never have to worry about where you are going to stay for the night because it is always with you. 

We have both been looking forward to this experience. Our friends have done it in New Zealand, and Australia before, and Iceland is another place that was designed specifically for this kind of trip. They all said that they loved it, and we were sure that we would also enjoy the moments that we would have in the van. There were a couple of things that our friends did not tell us about traveling this way that would have given us a better start to our adventure.

It started at the company that we rented the van from. They were really friendly and gave us a lot of great tips for the trip. They even rented a couple of camping chairs, and a camping tables and some bedding gear to us to make our trip more enjoyable. This stuff went into the back of the van. We were so excited to get started that we threw our belongings in the back and took off down the road. We even stopped at a local grocery store to get food for the next couple of days, and threw that in the back as well. 

We spent our first day driving to our first campsite while stopping at a couple of sights along the way. It wasn’t until we started to settle down for the night that we realized our mistake. The back of the van was a disorganized mess, and we were in the middle of a campsite with a steady drizzle going on. It took us a couple of days to get things organized, so it was no longer driving us crazy. After we got things organized, we were able to start living that Romantic ideal of traveling across a foreign country under our own terms and timeline. 

So that is my advice to you if you are thinking about traveling by camper van across any of these great countries. Before you leave for your adventure, take some time to organize your van. It might take an hour or two, but it will save your sanity. Of course, the van is going to turn into a huge mess as you travel down the road, especially if you are living in it for three weeks, but you can have this moment at the beginning where it feels fresh and new like an adventure should feel like at the start. It will also help you find those little things that you need when you need them because even though it is a small space you are living in, you would be amazed at how fast those little things get lost.

It is a great way to experience a country because it adds a new element to the adventure, and I highly recommend doing it, but take that time and make sure you are doing it right. It is that little thing that will save any relationship out there.

Happy travels, and let me know which camping van companies you think are the best in the countries that you travel in. I will have a review on which one I think is best for Iceland and why at the end of this trip. I will be traveling using two different vans, and I am only in the first one right now.

Iceland’s Traditional Farm Houses

I know that the Vikings were the first people to discover Iceland, and they were the ones to give it its name, but there was another group of people that eventually made their way over to this island. These people had to face harsh conditions to cultivate the land and survive. I never gave much thought to these people and what they did in order to survive, until I visited their traditional farm houses, Glaumbaer.

I got to see them during the summer months when they were free from snow, and really showcased how they were built. Basically they had turf for their roofs that would look like rolling hills if it wasn’t for the fact that on the front of each one of these hills was a wooden facade giving the place the look of a typical Scandinavian house from the 1800s. I thought of it as a strange little addition, but I get why it was added. It probably gave these people a small semblance of home and made it feel more comfortable.

Going inside set me up for another surprise. Basically, all of these small houses were not separate, but were instead part of a big chain of house brought together for one large community. The rooms were designed to keep people warm during the long winters with big pantries, a large kitchen, and rooms in the back with personal bunks where the community could sleep. The big huge roofs would acts as a great insulation against the pounding storms, and the people could get light from the small windows dotted all along the inside each room. There was even a small location where the pastor of the community could prepare for services to help guide these people through the tough times.

This community was a far ways away from any of the larger towns on the island as well. The people that chose to live out here knew that they has to rely on themselves and their own ingenuity to live a comfortable life. They would venture out to the larger towns a couple of times a year to collect the supplies they might need in order to survive the next season. Otherwise, they made do with what they had. They would use everything that they could find to make life comfortable from the bones of whales to vision sleds and plows to the blubber that they could use to make shoes that would keep them warm and dry. Sledgehammers were made out of large stones, and the beds were made out of whatever timber they could find.

The windows were another feature of the place that surprised me. They were tiny, but they let in considerable light. Considering that a good portion of the time they spent here was during the summer when the sun would never set, I could understand why they made the windows so small. It would let in just enough light so they could see by, but not enough so they could also sleep at night. I could also see the function they served during the winter months. They weren’t going to let in any light because there wasn’t any light to enter, and they wanted to keep out the cold, so larger windows would be a problem. It showed me that everything that they did in these farm houses was of a practical nature, and it was for this reason that they were able to live and farm in this far away place up north.

It was a great stop along the Ring Road of Iceland, and it was my first insight into the people who lived here long after the Vikings. Glaumbaer is a must stop for anyone who ventures out this way and it is worth the small entrance fee to get to tour its lands.

The Most Beautiful Sight in the World

Wait!

What?

I know what you are thinking. You read the title of this post and then looked at the accompanying picture. There is no way that a dreary picture of some random street with a near empty parking lot is the most beautiful sight in the world, but you need to put it in perspective.

This was the first sight I was given when I opened my window this morning after catching a few hours of sleep after a night flight, and what I see is not an empty street on a Sunday morning. What I see is the start of an adventure in a far away country.

Let me give you some context.

I spent yesterday in airports and on airplanes as I traveled from Amman, Jordan to Reykjavik, Iceland. It didn’t seem like a long day at the time. The two four-flights broken up with a quick layover in Vienna made it seem barely an inconvenience. But by the time I arrived at the airport on this cold island in the middle of the Atlantic, I could feel a change in climate and attitude. I was whisked away in a van to our hotel for the night, and barely registered what was going on because my mind was still lost in what it thought was 3 o’clock in the morning, the time I was usually in a deep sleep.

So to wake up to this sight this morning after a good night’s sleep had all the potential of what lay in store for me for the next couple of weeks. I know that I could have paid attention to it last night, and it could have had the same effect that it had on me this morning, but there were a lot of factors working against it. First, though I could still make out the terrain at midnight last night because the sun doesn’t really go down at night this far north, it was still dim enough that I could not really make out anything exciting. Also, I had just woken up from a series of ten minute naps as I tried to keep my wits about me as I was being driven to the hotel, so I wasn’t really in the mood to marvel at what lay before me. Last, my brain was in the place where it would usually be deep in R.E.M. sleep and I would be lost in a dream; how was I to know this unusual landscape wasn’t actually a dream in itself.

I needed that good night’s sleep so I could open the window this morning, and witness this picture. My heart beat faster in the excitement that I soon found myself wrapped up. There was an adventure to be had, and these was the starting point of that adventure. How could this not be the most beautiful sight in the world? Of course, there will be more spectacular sights to see along the way, but you never forget the beginning and the potential that it holds. So don’t look at this sight as something to skip over easily, but as the emotion is sparks up in the beholder, and you will find that the simplest of sights can be the most beautiful for you as well.

To those adventures we will all have this summer, and those first sights that bring them to us before we venture out on them. Keep on finding those experiences.

A Summer of Adventure

The two favorite words of teachers and children have been uttered numerous times over the last couple of weeks, Summer Break. It has been a rough couple of years with the ever-changing landscape of school due to the conditions of the world, but we have finally emerged from that to a new world of possibilities. There are still a few lingering effects of the pandemic, such as the need to wear masks on international flights, and the occasional PCR test to make sure that you are not carrying the disease to strange and remote parts of the world. Still, every day, a new restriction is being lifted, and it looks like it will be the perfect opportunity to travel the world again.

I woke up this morning on my second full day of Summer Break knowing that I will spend the majority of it moving from place to place. I will traveling to many different parts of the United States, sometimes for family, sometimes for friends, and sometimes for business. I will also start my adventure with a three week trek across Iceland. It is a promise for something I have not gotten to experience for a long time, and though I am a little nervous about traveling this way again, I am also really excited for the adventure to begin.

I am sure this is the same for many of you out there. If there is one thing that living this pandemic has taught us is that life is meant to be lived, and we should not put off those things that we have always wanted to experience in our lives. These opportunities can easily be taken away from us for financial reasons, war, or in the case of the last few years, a pandemic. Now that things have opened up again, I am going to take advantage of it. I hope you join me during the next couple of months on my journey, or more importantly, I hope that you take advantage of your opportunities yourself to go out and see those things that you have always wanted to see. Who knows, maybe our paths will cross while out there and we can make a part of our story together.

Two Greek Islands – Santorini and Naxos

Greece has always been a series of islands off of a the mainland to Europe. They were tied together by a collection of gods though their ideals based on these deities might be viewed by the different cities. Back in ancient days, these small individual communities had a common enemy to the east called the Persians which eventually united them under a common cause, but before then they were loosely tied together through trade and location.

It is hard to travel through these islands and not think about their old way of life. It is hard to think that at one time, to the Greeks, this was the whole world, even though we look at it now as just a small little corner of the Earth. When you stand on top of one of these islands and look across the Aegean Sea to another island, we think of it as something just a short ferry ride or airplane trip between them, but if you think about how they viewed those other islands, it would have been a different community and would take a day to get from one island to the next closest one.

Though we can take this simplicity of life for granted, and think of those people who lived so long ago as being disadvantaged, it probably was not the case. The people still had art that is admired to this day, and they used that art to beautify their communities, much like we do today. People would still bustle around their cities, making sure that their daily chores were done and try to carve out a life for themselves, much like we do today. They would see outsiders with a cautious eye even though when they got to know them, they would realize that they are not much different than they were, much like we do. They would have friends, and families. They would work during the day. They would look to their loved ones to enjoy their evenings. All of this much like we do.

Though we would look back at those times as a time when life was made more difficult do to their lack of technology, they would not have seen it that way. They would have looked at themselves as the height of civilization, and would have lived a life of comfort. Yes, they would have a hard time if they were transported to this age just as we would if we found ourselves back in that age, but in reality, things would not have been that different.

In reality, nothing much has really changed. The traditions may have changed, and we may no longer look to the ancient gods for guidance to our ideology, but if you stripped away all of these cultural differences, you would still see a group of people, who at the heart of it all, still had the same major concerns that each of us as individuals also have. We are a group of people who find commonality with each other to make those strong connections that build up over a lifetime so that we can create the memories that give us a fulfilling life.

As I look back at my recent trip to Greece and the two islands that I got to visit, Santorini and Naxos, I can’t help to think about how much I owe to this ancient culture. But it is not just this culture that I should give tribute to. It is every culture that I have been lucky to have made contact to. It is this collective whole that makes up now just me, but every person who has ever lived on this planet. There is so much that we all have in common that if look past the superficial, we will be able to see it. Thank you Greece for helping me see this, and I hope that I can bring this attitude with me to every other place I get to visit in this world.

Until next time, keep traveling, and keep enjoying making those greater connections.

Akrotiri Ruins – Santorini, Greece

It is easy to forget that Santorini is a Greek island with a lot of history and archeological sights on it. There are so many other things to do on this island that this sometimes gets brushed under the rug to be forgotten about, but one of the must-do sights on the island should not be treated this way, the Akrotiri Ruins on the southern edge of the island.

Before the volcano of Santorini exploded leaving only a caldera behind, Akrotiri used to be the prominent city on the island and a major trading center in the Aegean Sea. Despite its growth, it eventually fell victim to the volcano and was buried under hot magma to preserved for ages. It has since been rediscovered and archeologists are slowly digging it out giving it a feel very much like Pompeii in Italy. The biggest differences being that this sight is centuries older than the preservation next to Mount Vesuvius, and they have only uncovered about three percent on this vast city.

They have already found some amazing art and vases that have been left behind. Because this is an active archeological sight, many of these priceless artifacts are brought to the museum in town to be put on display so they can finish uncovering more of the town. Despite this, there are still a lot of pieces that are there to look at, and add to the flavor of making the trip out there.

The real draw though is the opportunity to visit an actual archeological sight and look at the architecture from a period of time when it was still being developed. You also have the opportunity to walk through the ruins and feel what it would be like to live in this city so many centuries ago. There is actually a lot to see for them only uncovering such a little bit of the town, and you can see why this was one of the major trading posts in this part of the world.

So, if you make your way out to Santorini island and have a few days out here, the Akrotiri archeological dig should be one of the sights that you make time to see. It might take away from the wine tasting, walking the caldera, and eating amazing food in one of the most dramatic cities in the world, but it is worth the trip. It is only a half an hour bus ride from Firi, and they will be back to pick you up right around the time you finish your exploration, so there is no reason that you shouldn’t go.

A Drive on an Island – Naxos, Greece

I knew that a large portion of Greece was a collection of islands, but I did not know that each island had its own flavor and character. I know that it does not take a huge leap of logic to figure that out, but it is not something that most people would think about until they find themselves traveling between them. I also thought that I would spend my time on the coast of these islands hanging out on the beaches, but when I got to Naxos, I realized that it would be great to spend a day on the interior of the island and explore what it had to offer.

There are many small towns in the interior part of the island with two of the more exciting ones being Chalki and Apiranthos. Both of these towns have their own charm, and are fun to wander through. Chalki was a town that was inhabited by Crete refugees many years ago, and they brought their knowledge of marble working with them. The town is basically made of this marble, and it makes for an enjoyable day to walk through the town and marvel at the architecture.

Apiranthos is more built up than Chaki and sits in a valley floor. At first look, it might appear to be like any other small town in Europe, but its real charm comes in the old downtown area. There are great walking streets with nice restaurants, galleries and shops. But the real appeal of this town is getting out of it. There is a hiking loop that goes for six-and-a-half kilometers. On it, you will be able to find some historic places that you would expect to find on a Greek island though most of them a Greek Orthodox in nature and not the more historic Greek gods that first come to mind when thinking about this country.

That does not mean that there are not plenty of these features left from Ancient Greece on the island. There is the Temple of Demetrius which has been turned into a museum. If you want to go there make sure that you go earlier in the day because they do close up early in the afternoon. We had made it there at 4 o’clock after touring around the interior of the island and they were locking up, but looking at for a distance it looked like a place worth visiting. If you want to look for something free, there is the unfinished statue of Dionysus. It sits in the same place where they were working on it and it is a huge piece of marble that weighs over 60 tons. It is not hard to find and sit only fifty feet off of the side of the road.

Basically, anywhere you go in the interior of Naxos island will surprise you. It is worth renting a car for a day or two if you are out here and checking out all this island has to offer. It is not just beaches and a big city on the edge of an island. The island is filled with culture just waiting for you to voyage out to find it.

Sunset in Naxos – Naxos, Greece

One of the greatest appeals of the island of Naxos is the fact that the major city on the island faces to the west, giving people who visit the perfect opportunity to watch the sun set every evening. For those of you who followed my blog during the time I was trapped in Thailand knew that I spent a lot of my time out there searching for the perfect sunset. So now that I am on another island that offers the same feature, of course I would take advantage of it.

The perches that a person can find in this city are countless and each one gives its unique perspective. I was lucky enough to have found one in the little apartment that we rented while we were out here. It has a beautiful roof patio that gives that perfect view over the ocean. There are a couple of buildings in the way, but it still made for the perfect opportunity for pictures.

Most visitors like to head out to the peninsula at the tip of the island to get the perfect picture there. Not only does it get you away from all of the modern buildings, but it also offers the perfect structure to take the pictures with, Apollo’s Temple.

Of course the perfect shot that everybody tries to obtain is the sun sinking below the horizon while being framed by the forgotten door way. I don’t know what this is like during the height of tourist season, but I suspect that you will need to get out there early if you wish to position yourself for the perfect spot to get that picture. I was lucky enough to be out here during the offseason, and did not have to fight for that spot, but the wind still likes to whip over this little plot of land and makes it really cold. If you find yourself out here during the same time, I highly recommend dressing in warm clothes because you will need them while you are watching the sun set.

Some people still find the perfect spot along the coast for their picture. There a lot of those little spots as well. No matter where you go to get that picture, you will not be disappointed because Naxos has plenty of great places to get that amazing sunset snapshot. 

The Island of Naxos – Naxos, Greece

Naxos is not as touristy as some of the other Greek islands, but that does not mean that it is not worth the visit. It is known more for the agriculture rather than the wine, sights or nightlife that some of the islands that are known for, but the dramatic arrival from the ferry port lets you know that you are still in for a treat by visiting this island. As soon as you exit the ferry, you can’t help to look to the left and see the ancient marble doorframe that stands on the edge of the coast. It has been standing there since 430 B.C. when the tyrannical ruler of the island of Naxos commissioned that it be built to create a temple for the god, Apollo. The temple never was finished, but the doorway still remains.

Getting closer to it shows that a little of the foundation was laid as well, but it is more interesting to see the history of architecture by looking at the doorway. It is a simple design that came around long before the Roman arch. It does not mean that it is any less powerful than the Roman arch; it just means that they have not come up with the more elegant design yet. The doorway had still stood the test of time though because here it still stands despite the rain and wind that constantly batters it throughout the centuries.

This is not the only historical place right off from the ferry either. In 1490, a Venetian came out to the small island and decided to build a castle on the top of the hill that sits right outside of the port. Of course, the centuries of weather was not as friendly to this castle as it was to the doorway, but the people of Naxos have come back and restored it to its former glory except now it is a place for families to live, as well as restaurants and shops.

It makes a great place to wander through. They call it the labyrinth, and the name is well deserved. There are a ton of twists and turns with each one giving another surprise. It reminded me on a mini-Venice and a great way to spend the afternoon was spent wandering through it narrow passages. You can easily get lost among them, but you know that you won’t get too lost because there is not that much space to get lost in.

Basically, Naxos is not the island that hits you in the face with its touristy ways, and for that reason many people might dismiss it as a place not worthy of your time. When I first arrived on the island, I fell into that camp, but I have come to find out that there is a certain amount of charm with the island that will grow on you, making it worth your time.