Travel to Iceland overview video – quick Iceland travel guide

See this video about what you can expect to experience when you travel to Iceland.

At our trip we didn’t see and experience everything shown in this video, but this is what you can manage to see in iceland in a two weeks trip with travel around on Iceland, and dwelling in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik. Hope you can make a trip to Iceland this summer as Iceland is a cheap travel destination at the moment due to the financial crisis in Iceland.

Read more about Iceland (in Nordic languages ‘Island’) here.

Birding in Iceland – enjoy special birds

Iceland is a Mecca for birding.

Birdwatchers come from far away countries to enjoy the special birds of Iceland and the impressive landscape. You don’t need to leave the capital of Iceland Reykjavik to experience some interesting birds. The lake in the city, Tjörnin, is a good starting point for birding. In Tjörnin you will find a number of bird species you might not be used to observe in your own country.

For me, I have always enjoyed observing the yellow billed swan the Whooper Swan (Cygnus Cygnus) very close at this city lake. The lake holds plenty of whooper swans and you can easily observe their courtship behaviour and other aspects of their behaviour at the springtime.

When I visited Iceland last time in early spring (3.-7. April) the Tjörnin lake was full of wildfowls: swans, ducks, cormorants and gulls, all to be seen easily. I have during earlier visits enjoyed seeing the Icelandic speciality (a speciality from an European perspective) the diving duck Barro’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) but I wasn’t lucky to see it this time.

You are well helped to go to different birding localities if you buy the ‘Birdwatchers’s Map’, ‘Fuglakort’. This Birdwatchers’s Map’ is an overview of the birds of Iceland and includes some oversight maps of the best bird localities. The price of this birding in Island map was 1.290 Icelandic kroner.

I also bought the very detailed topographic map of Iceland ‘Naturturufarskort’, called ‘Gródurkort 1:500.000 that is also a vegetation map and therefore very useful for bird tours, too. The price of this Island map was 1.290 Icelandic kroner, too.

Birding in Iceland is really rewarding and I will post more about where to go bird watching near Reykjavik in future posts at IslandVacationTips.com .

You can buy these Icelandic maps at the rather large bookshop in the centre of Reykjavik.

Here, I also bought:

Icelandic Birds Guide of J´0hann Óli Hilmarsson with color photos of the Icelandic birds. Price 3.990 Icelandic kroner.
And
Birdwatching, in the series of books Iceland Nature Guides. By Helgi Gudmundsson and Jón Baldur Hlidberg. A fine little book, called a concise guide to the areas of Iceland of interest to the birdwatchers with brief descriptions of all Icelandic breeding birds. Price just 460 Icelandic kroner.

PS

Remember the Icelandic currency is very cheap at the moment – take advantage of it going to Iceland this spring and summer.

Iceland Island on stamps from Iceland

The title ‘Iceland Island on stamps‘ of this post might sound strange, but my recent travel to Iceland reminded me about my confusion as a little boy about names on Icelandic stamps and names of other islands. You can see the name Island on these old stamps beside.

In Icelandic language the name of Iceland is ‘Island’ and it is the same in Danish language. When I was a boy in Denmark in the late 50ties and early 60ties I liked to collect stamps like many other boys were doing.

As Denmark had a long connection to Iceland the stamps from Iceland were of cause much in my mind. From older collectors of stamps I was told that especially stamps from Iceland were valuable, like stamps from Greenland and the Faeroe Islands. These all came from countries and territories with very small populations.

On the stamps from Iceland the name of the nation was named ISLAND – of cause in their own Icelandic language. So for me ‘Island’ became the signal word for me when I was browsing through piles of used stamps from different sources.

It took me some time to learn and be acquainted with the reality that I found many other stamps from different parts of the world with ‘Island’ printed on the stamp – simply from some of the many other countries and territories that were ‘islands’. – And funny enough I still have these associations in my mind with ISLAND.

The meaning of Iceland and Island is exactly the same, the land of ice – even this isn’t any good description of Iceland, as the winter climate of Iceland is rather mild due to the passage of the Gulf current bringing warmer water up to the Northern Atlantic Ocean.

The old stamps from Iceland were quite boring to look at, but they are expensive now. The modern stamps from Iceland are of the kind of modern stamps we know from most other countries of the world, they are in a commercial marketplace for attractive stamps with specific motives to attract stamp collectors like the dog stamp here.

Their value for collectors is low, but the information value of such stamps can be rather high. Even I stopped collecting stamps long, long time ago; I still have to control myself when I find attractive and informative stamps when I visit islands and other countries of the world today.

More Icelandic dog stamps here at http://www.dogstamps.dk/iceland.htm

Read more about Island / Iceland here.

Gullfoss one of the most impressive waterfalls of Iceland

Gullfoss waterfall of Iceland – visit in daytrip from Reykjavik

Gullfoss is a most spectacular waterfall, not that far from the capital Reykjavik of Iceland. The river Hvítá sends during some periods 200-300 cubic metres per second of water over the rocks and down at this must see tourist destination of Iceland. The height is 34 metres, not a fall competing with some of the highest water falls of the world, but high enough to be really worthwhile seeing.

For good reasons tourists are coming to Gullfoss not only in the light summer season, but also during winter when ice makes Gullfoss to a very special view. Gullfoss is also known as the Golden Waterfall and many tourist agencies offer coaches to visit Gullfoss waterfall all through the year.

The tour packages are often including a number of sights from daytrips from Reykjavik, as the following tourist destinations can be on the way when tourists visit Gullfoss: Geysir, Þingvellir National Park, tectonic rifting at Thingvellir and other interesting tourist attractions.

My wife and I visited Gullfoss waterfall in a hired car from the airport of Reykjavik without any problems.

Tourist attractions in Iceland near Reykjavik

Most tourists will think of nature and the Icelandic landscape as the main attractions for visiting tourists in Iceland. And that is true that the wild landscape with glaciers, geysers, vulcans, mountains, lakes, the ruff coastline and islands etc. are really attractive to experience, not to mention the birdlife and life in the ocean around Iceland.

But the history of Iceland and Icelanders is as fascinating and unique as anything else. Did you know that Iceland hosted the first parliament of the world, Althing, that was established in year 930 in a beautiful area not far from the modern capital of Iceland Reykjavik with the name Þingvellir and now saved for the future as Þingvellir National Park – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Remark the special Icelandic letter Þ, expressed ‘th’. Icelandic language is a very original version of the Nordic language family that has been preserved on Iceland as a rather isolated island far out in the Atlantic Ocean. The Althing was an annual functioning judiciary and legislative parliament, founded as the political hub of the Icelandic Commonwealth.

During our short travel to Iceland in April my wife and I visited the Þingvellir National Park in a hired car.  The Þingvellir National Parkthat has many interesting attractions for the tourist. Besides the historical sites nature is showing some impressive signs of the moving geology as Iceland is situated on the moveable zone between the two huge continental tectonic plates of the North Atlantic Ocean. See the location of the Þingvellir National Park at the map below: