Iceland

Eyjafjallajökull eruption 17-April, 2010

Somewhere around 20 countries closed their airspace, and 10 million travelers were affected during the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Fortunately, nothing so exciting happened when we stopped off in Iceland for three days on our way home. Icelandair makes it incredibly easy to layover for up to 7 days flying between the US and Europe. We jumped at the opportunity.

Iceland is an active volcanic island just south of the Arctic Circle. The earliest evidence of human settlement dates back only about 1,300 years. The settlers were Nordic and Celtic. During the first half of the 20th century, Iceland was a Danish dependency until April 1940 when Nazi Germany invaded Denmark. Because of Iceland's strategic location on a great circle route between Europe and North America, Great Britain, followed by the United States, occupied Iceland during the war to prevent a German invasion. Iceland became an independent republic on 17-June, 1944.

Today, sparsely populated and geologically active Iceland felt to us like a national park. The scenery is stark and beautiful. The small city of Reykjavik is vibrant and charming. We had a great time. Here are some of our pictures:

Goðafoss

 Goðafoss

Strokkur Geyser

The Strokkur Geyser and surrounding hot springs, and the Goðafoss waterfall are part of the Golden Circle, a popular touring route in western Iceland near where we were staying. 

We stayed at the Hotel Rangá, about 90 minutes south of Reykjavik. Everything in Iceland is expensive, and so are meals and accommodations at the Hotel Rangá. After all, it is an island and most things need to be imported - except geothermal energy. In Iceland, over 90% of all heating and hot water is provided by geothermal hot springs. Large pipes can be seen crossing the landscape transporting hot water from the hot springs to the populated areas.

During the summer, one cannot wait until after dark since it never gets dark. While we were there in early June, the sun set at 11:45 pm, but it hardly got below the horizon before it rose again about 3 1/2 hours later. In the winter, it is dark most of the time with only 3 or 4 hours of daylight. I noticed that the hotel has a live web cam accessible from the web site. This is not particularly exciting on your average summer day, but has the potential to capture the spectacular aurora borealis (northern lights) during the winter months.

aurora borealis at the Hotel Rangá
(from their web site)

Reykjavik

Hallgrímskirkja  
Lutheran church in Reykjavik

view from Hallgrímskirkja

Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre

The Harpa Concert Hall is an architectural marvel.   Designed by architect Henning Larsen and artist Olafur Eliasson, they won the 2013 European Union prize for contemporary architecture. The project was almost derailed the 2007-8 banking crisis, but government funding came to the rescue. Today, the beauty and elegance is difficult to overstate.

The story of Reykjavik would be incomplete if it did not include Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, the famous hotdog stand that opened for business in 1937 and has been operational since. After all the build up (best hotdog in Europe, best hotdog ever) we had to try one. First, we had to wait in line for about 20 minutes. We finally got our dogs, ordering them "with the works". In our opinion, the real hero was the condiments, particularly the crispy fried onions.

Iceland was great. I recommend a visit, particularly if you have the time while traveling to or from Europe.

Footnote:  Fly Iceland Air. Avoid WOW!

The Islands of Greece (May 20-30)

Thousands of Greek Islands are spread out across the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey. Two hundred, more or less, are inhabited. We visited two - Santorini (Thira) and Crete (both seen at the bottom of the map).

Our first stop was Santorini, a small volcanic island at the south end of an island group called the Cyclades. Santorini is beautiful and amazing. It is a volcanic island. 3,600 years ago, an eruption of biblical proportions occurred that not only took out Santorini, but also took out surrounding islands and areas as far away as Egypt. The Minoan civilization that inhabited Santorini evidently heeded the advance warnings and fled the island since there is no trace of human remains at the archeological sites. They apparently fled to Crete in advance of the eruption, but that was not far enough. Superheated gas (pyroclastic flow) can travel at hundreds of miles per hour and incinerate anything in its path. If that did not get them 70 miles away on Crete, the tsunami estimated to be over 100 feet high did unless they were high in the hills and mountains of Crete. The Minoans, the most advanced civilization of their day, disappeared completely over the next 200 years. An excellent National Geographic video discussing volcanoes in general and Thira in particular can be found here.  

The satellite photo shows the horseshoe-shaped Santorini and the smaller island of Thirasia forming pieces of a ring with small islands in the middle of the caldera. The water-filled caldera formed at the time of the eruption 3,600 years ago when the mountain blew its top.

The eruption of Thira was likely the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history, an eruption of potentially biblical proportions. Several ancient stories may have been related to this eruption including the parting of the Red Sea, and Plato's description of the fictional island of Atlantis.

We went to the Greek Islands with our friends Bob and Sheree. Bob and I have been friends since we were both 11 years old, and we have stayed close since. We decided to go to the Greek Islands to celebrate Bob's birthday and our anniversary, and celebrate we did. The first 5 days on Santorini were spent mostly sipping Ouzo and watching sunsets. Here are some photos documenting those important events:

Bob and Eric after breakfast

We stayed in the town of Fira (Φηρά). Like much of Santorini, the buildings of Fira are constructed on the steep slopes which drop to the sea. 

Fira

Fira

Fira

Fira

Lounging Fira lizard
(not to be confused with Fira lounge lizards)

The four of us went with a group of 15 for an afternoon catamaran sail from the north end of Santorini to the south end. A boat identical to ours looked like this. We were accompanied by a lively group of Brazilians. Food and drink were excellent, and the crew was great. A great time was had by all. The sunset was spectacular!

Mountain goats spotted high above us on a cliff

Bob and Sheree enjoying thermal water off the coast of Santorini.

Sunset from Exomytis Bay south of Santorini

High speed ferry Santorini to Crete
approaching the Santorini dock

Our next stop was Crete. We boarded the ferry at 6:30 PM, about one hour late and arrived at Heraklion after dark 2 1/2 hours later. We rented a car and embarked on the two hour drive to Chania at the west end of Crete. Fortunately, the coastal highway from Heraklion to Chania was quite good and not a problem. We were cheerfully greeted at midnight by sleepy attendants of the Casa Delfino Hotel in the center of the old town section of Chania.  Here are some photographs from their web site.

Hotel entrance

Hotel courtyard

view the Chania harbor from our deck

Like so much of Greece, Chania is an archeologist's paradise. Evidence of the Minoan civilization has been found dating back at least 3,500 years. Since then, the Byzantines, Romans, and Ottomans have had their presence. Chania was invaded and held by the Nazis during World War II. Evidence of this history is seen everywhere. There was a largely intact wall built by the Romans just outside our hotel.

We were able to visit a huge botanical garden in the foothills of the southern mountains. We took the shortest walk of 2 km through the garden. Here are some of the pictures I took:

I found it necessary to briefly
come out of retirement
using the new portable iProbe™
1.2 THz RF transducer

Our last morning on Crete was spent at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. It is regarded as one of the greatest museums in Greece, and contains the most complete collection of artifacts of the Minoan civilization in the world. The chronological span is over 5,500 years from the Neolithic period to Roman times. Here are some of the pictures I took in the museum: