Iceland

Traveling to Iceland everyone says a few things to you in advance. It’s expensive, it is beautiful, there are a lot of tourists and in the winter or course, it is cold. We found most of that to be true, barring the part about a lot of tourists. Maybe because we travelled in February, maybe because Cov-19 is giving people a reason not to travel, who knows. On a couple of occasions we even found ourselves totally alone, if briefly, at some of the most popular spots. 

Anyways, on to what we saw. We had decided early on to rent a car and drive around the south and some of the west of the island. This is not too uncommon and most people view the things we did in what is called the Golden Circle. Certainly this is where we saw the most tourists, but even there, not a huge amount. We ended up getting a Subaru Forester, which was a good choice as it was big enough to get us around in winter, but not so big that it was a gas hog or hard to park. Gas is expensive! It was close to 120usd to fill the tank which we did a few times during the week. The first day we had just enough time to land, get the car, shop for a few things, and then get to our first airbnb. It was a nice little place and literally right across the street from the Secret Lagoon. The Lagoon was a fairly nice pool and it was cool to take the soak in the cold air, but its nothing like Japanese onsen with its many pools and so forth. Still, it was relaxing and how can you go to Iceland and not go to at least one hot spring? 

 

The circle includes the Gulifoss, the Strokkur geyser, and the Kerid crater which we did not go to. At the waterfall there was a hard snow storm blowing. We arrived just about at 10am, sunrise was around 9am, and the tour buses seemed to roll in just as we were leaving around 1045. We found this most days, if we could start driving in the dark around 830 and get to places by 9ish then we would be mostly alone before tour buses were hitting the road. The falls themselves were massive and beautiful, but it was just too cold to stand around for a long time and even removing my glove to snap some pictures left me with a sting in the fingers. So, we headed to the gift shop for some warm drinks and to write postcards. Not nearly as beautiful, but a lot warmer than standing by the falls. 

After the waterfall we headed to the geyser. I hear that the big geyser has stopped spouting, but the smaller of the two is still going and seems to blow every 5 to 10 minutes. It was here that I learned that Aya cannot take a selfie. We are not picture people, so it makes sense, but I thought everyone could do this much like eating with chopsticks (also not true, some people can’t). I’ve also since learned that geyser is an Icelandic word that we have adopted into English. Pretty cool. I wonder if there are other words that made it in? I kind of doubt it since Icelandic is a pretty hard language for native English speakers to grasp and while there are a lot of unique things in the country they probably don't cross over much to other places. Can you say, "Snæfellsnes"? How about Eyjafjallajökull?Well, that is probably why not many words crossed over. We did get a kind of selfie during the blow up, and then hit the road again.

Heading south now in the golden circle we stopped for a quick lunch at a Tomato Restaurant. Aya had read about it and when we arrived there we saw a group of Japanese tourists inside waiting for lunch. It was just the type of spot where Japanese tourists would flock to, cute little place with fresh veggies and high prices. We knew right away they were Japanese and not Korean or Chinese since there were about 20 of them at a long table and you could see the lips of some of them moving, but you could not hear them at all from even just a couple meters away. At first I thought, wow, the acoustics in this place really dampen your voice, but that was not so. There were other people stopping there too and there was a large greenhouse attached to the restaurant area we were in where you could see the production of the tomatoes everyone was eating. As we went among the rows looking at things an American just ahead of us commented on our yaktrax that we were wearing. How do I know they were American? Just like the Japanese there is communication etiquette that sets Americans apart. They are very likely to engage in small talk with strangers and are friendly, but they are not nearly as good at volume control as the Japanese are. Though a mere meters away I could have been on the other side of the greenhouse and still heard them. After poking around for a bit we had some tomato soup and bread (really delicious!). I was tempted to get a bloody mary, but I'm a responsible driver so I just moaned about not having one for a bit and then we hit the road again. 

ON the way south we stopped at a foss just outside of Hella. I'm not sure of the name, but is was "foss"tastic. We had the place all to ourselves, though we did see some tracks in the snow so we knew others had been there in the morning. 

Continuing south and east we stopped at the black sand beach (totally empty!) then went on just a bit past Vik where we stopped for the night. We stayed at Landabrot cabins, just past the Magma Hotel. The cabins were kind of in the middle of nowhere, but there were a few of them strewn about so it was kind of funny to see the other tourists like us come and go each morning and evening and get a sense of when people were traveling. We stayed there two nights, the first on arrival and then the second after hiking the glacier. 

Our glacier hike went from 2pm to 5pm, but really it seemed a lot longer. We took a late start in the morning and due to snow ended up driving for about 1.5 hours before getting to the national park and the glacier. The hiking company set us up with helmets, harnesses and crampons. Otherwise we were well prepared with many layers and little heat packs we each put in our boots by our toes. As we later learned walking around Reykjavík the little heat packs in the boots are a good idea as with the packets, the layers, and the hiking around we weren’t really too cold during our hike but we were later in the city without the heat packs. In a group of about 20 we were lead up to the foot of the glacier and then we went to three different ice caves. The first and last were quite large and blue ice. You could easily stand in them and see the air bubbles and debris that was in the ice. The second cave was dark grey ice that our guide said was volcanic ash. I suppose this was true as most of the island is made up of volcanic ash so one way or the other it is everywhere. In this second cave we crawled through a claustrophobic passageway to really see the belly of the ice cave. After spending a couple hours in the caves we made our way down arriving to the parking lot around 530pm. How do I know the exact time? Because, in Iceland there are only state owned liquor stores to sell beer and they are only open from 2pm to 6pm. I knew it was too late to grab beers for the night. Life is hard, what can I say. From there we had another hour or so back to our cabin and an early night to sleep and get ready for the long drive the next day. 

The next day we ended up covering about 300km. As with other days we started out early and made it to Dyrholaey peninsula where there is a beautiful lighthouse and rock formation. On the drive there we did not see many people and as we approached the bottom of the hill leading to the lighthouse we saw some knocked over sign on the road, but I figured it was nothing and drove on. The blue hue of the early morning light was so intense and we were the only people on the grounds for the whole time! Unbelievable... I thought, until we drove back down the hill and there was the same sign but now upright and it said DO NOT ENTER, LANDSLIDE. Oh well, we lived. 

 We had to do laundry this day and so made it a point to just drive as far as we could and get to the next place with enough time to spare in the evening for laundry. We thought it might be possible to do this and to get a few hours up to the Snaefellsness peninsula, but by the time we got to Bogarnes it was already later in the afternoon and I was getting tired of driving. We spent this evening just hanging around, watching Dr. Phil, and doing our laundry. Wow, I forgot how crazy the Dr. Phil show is. Dang America, you are giving Icelanders one hell of an impression of what American society is like!  

The next day we were out early and on the road to get up to the peninsula. I’m a big fan of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and so I wanted to go see one of the places where it was filmed in Iceland. IN the movie it is supposed to be Greenland and really what is the difference in filming? As we were driving north we could tell that the wind and snow drifts were pretty bad, but having grown up driving in Wisconsin I was pretty sure of myself on the road. However, as we went through a mountain pass I nearly gave up and turned around as I couldn’t see more than 100 ft in front of me and the wind was really blowing hard. We kept going and eventually got to clearer weather. We did eventually get to Snaefellsness, found the scene from the movie and walked around the town for just a bit getting some good views of the sea before heading back again. 

As we were leaving town a rescue vehicle nearly cut us off and I thought, oh shit someone got stuck in the pass we just came through. Sure enough when we took the pass again there was a line of cars waiting and as it turned out someone had gotten stuck in a drift that was covering the entire lane on a bridge, the drift being about a meter Deep. The rescue vehicle was really just a souped-up suv and as we passed it hadn’t made any progress yet on pulling the car out, but we did get past. As we made our way down the mountain visibility was nearly as bad and there was a caravan of about 5 cars, myself in the end position, making our way down slowly. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for someone to get behind me and attempt to pass all 5 cars in the blinding snow only to have oncoming traffic block their way and to swerve into the line of slower vehicle causing me to have to jam on the brakes. I could not believe it, but this guy attempted a few times to pass all the cars and each time was rebuffed as there was oncoming traffic which any of us could see. I don't mind so much if people are suicidal, but when they are going to take me with them I get a bit irritated with them. 

Eventually we came off of the mountain and lost of most of the bad weather continuing on our way to Reykjavík. About half way there, in the distant bay, I could make out some wakes in the waves that were just too big to be anything else than whales. Eventually we found a rest point and watched them for a bit. They never did breech, but watching the motions and size of the wakes we could also see their black backs sticking up a bit too. They did not seem to be in a big hurry so we made our way to the Hilton on the outside of town and got hunkered down for the night. 

The following day we went on a walking tour of the town which didn’t cover all that much area. Reykjavík is not a big city, just about 200,000 people, but even at that size the downtown was not very big and most of it could be covered on foot within an hour. Our guide showed our group around to a few different spots, the parliamentary building, the courthouse, and some historical sites. What we did not anticipate was the cold. Like our glacier hike we made sure to bundle up, but we assumed that our toes would be fine and did not use the hot packets. That was a mistake! By the end of the 1.5 hour tour my toes were frozen! Feeling like we had pretty much seen everything we wanted to we headed back to the hotel to use their spa and get my little piggies warmed up. 

That was pretty much that for Iceland though we did drive to the airport the next day and so forth. It is a beautiful place and now, sitting in Poland with the borders close, we are so glad we got to take such a great trip just as the door was closing. 

Cyprus and Malta

As part of our "Its the middle of Polish winter so please lets see the sun" tour we hopped from Athens to Cyprus to visit Aya's work headquarters and then to Malta because, its another country I can visit!

Cyprus was pleasantly warm, a bit more so than usual I'm told, and most days I was wearing short sleeves and getting some sun. Aya's work was nice enough to put us up at a beach side hotel with a really nice view. Since it was the off season I can't imagine there were more than 50 other guests there, so it was pretty quiet.

We were really only there for one full day and the afternoon we arrived, so right away we went to Aya's work headquarters to see some people and check out the place. I'd never been there, but Aya had a couple of times for some work things. I was pretty impressed. There must have been a few hundred employees there and as we made our way around to shake hands and meet people everyone knew who Aya was. Kind of makes sense since she has been there pretty much from the start of the company and, I believe, is one of just a handful of her team members that have been there longer than 5 years. The company was bustling, but as we headed to the roof things calmed down a bit at the rooftop bar where it seemed like half the company was having a cup of coffee or a cigarette and enjoying the day! (joking, but only kind of). After visiting for a bit we headed back to the hotel with some very laid back plans for the next morning.

I woke up early to go running and noticed on the map that the Amathus Ruins were just a few kilometers from the hotel. So I took an out and back run to check it out. The ruins are pretty cool, but after Athens I think a bit underwhelming. Still, I thought they were cool enough that Aya and I would return later that day. 

 For lunch we were going to meet up with some of Aya's co-workers and since the place we were meeting was right by the Limasol Castle we decided to have a look. From the outside it is a quite boxy squat building (good for a castle defensively I guess) and from the inside it is quite a squat boxy building. It was neat to have a look at the armory and the various rooms and to imagine people who had called this place their work place so many years ago. From the roof tops there is a pretty sweet view and I bet that was a perk of working in the castle so many years before. Nice view. Good benefits. Occasional violent altercation. Hiring.

In the afternoon we took the bus out to the ruins and then later had a walk back to the hotel. The ruins were pretty neat. The city was one of the richest in Cyprus for some time, but scaled back around 300BC. From the wikipedia page it says that, "Amathus was built on the coastal cliffs with a natural harbour and flourished at an early date, soon requiring several cemeteries."and you know that as  a city you've made it once you require several cemeteries. Really though the city was full of culture and had one of the earliest Christian churches, even sending one of its bishops to the second council of Nicea (Nicene creed anyone? Anyone?) Ok, that was the first council of Nicea, but close!

The next morning we were on the wing again and off to Malta. Cyprus, nice place, thank you and hope to see you again.

When we landed in Malta we had a surprise. The air pollution! Being former Beijingers we know air pollution when we see/smell it and coming off the plane we could tell right away that the air was bad. Checking our apps we could see it, but why? We never did quite figure that out, but perhaps because of the proximity to southern Italy? 

By the next day the sky had cleared and we had one full day to see what we could. Unfortunately what we didn't realize is that it was some kind of feast day and so a good number of things were closed! But... we did get almost 20k steps in! 

We spent the morning just wandering around Valetta. Wow, what a beautiful place! Just walking around was treat enough, but we decided to make it to the fort by noon for the firing of the cannons. Unfortunately my trigger finder was not quite fast enough and I just missed the boom of the cannons.

We had decided that we would try our best to reach Mdina and then come back again. By the time we got there it was early afternoon, so we stopped to have something to eat and then to visit the castle. To our dismay we found out pretty much everything in the area was closed for the feast day, but we did make it to St. Agatha's and St. Paul's catacombs. That was pretty cool since, it is rumored, St. Paul had sheltered there in the catacomb for some time.

After that we merely caught the bus back to our hotel as there was not much to do with everything closed. Malta seems like a pretty cool place and I could definitely see coming back here again, but hey, how about improving that air quality?

Athens

Over the Christmas vacation time we spent a few days each in Greece, Cyprus, and Malta and it was great. Before leaving I had mentioned to a colleague that we would be going to Athens and hoping for little warmth and sun. He said to not set the bar too high as he had lived there for some time and that there could be spats of clouds and cold. Well, we got lucky it seems as it was sunny and warm every day and perfectly cool every night. Nothing more than a light jacket was ever required and I was often going in short sleeves. 

To get to the city from the airport and then back again we took the bus which I do not recommend if you are returning and need to make a time. Traffic got snarled pretty quickly and the bus was packed to the gills. On the way in, this is fine since we were not in a rush, but on the way back it got a little nerve racking and quite sweaty, though we still had plenty of time at the airport. 

We didn’t have too much of a plan beyond seeing the normal sights in Athens, so here is a run down of how that went. As for planning, we did look into how to get to the main sites, etc. and to plan for just a few days in the city as well as watching a couple travel vids. Rick Steves’s video we watched twice! Although I would say he was a little too detailed for us, but really there was not much good video information out there. I really wish Globetrotter would do a new series, I really loved their videos but now everything is getting a bit outdated as most of those were made in the early 2000s! 

On day one we went to the Parthenon/Acropolis early arriving at the gates right when the opened, 8am. This was a good idea, it turned out. When we were entering there were maybe a dozen other people with us and shortly after we actually made it to the top a few dozen more. By the time we’d seen enough and started to descend there were a few hundred other souls on top with us. Nothing too bad, but you could tell it was only getting started. We had also downloaded Rick Steves guide to listen to and it was pretty good, thanks Rick! The monuments/temples were awfully beautiful and at that high point in the city the views were great, especially with the morning sun giving it all a warm glow. A few tidbits that I appreciated was learning about the various attempts at restoration and destructions that had occurred over the years. Sometimes restoration attempts left the Parthenon worse off! It is true that sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action. 

We had planned to try to make it to the (new) Parthenon Museum by 9am when it opened, but spent a bit more time on top of the Acropolis and getting down the north? Side then what we thought. We arrived at about 9:45. Still, the museum was not very crowded. It seems that most people did as we did, Acropolis first and then the museum as there seemingly weren’t many people entering from the north? To the Acropolis. About an hour around the museum was sufficient and then we took a break in the cafe, nicely enough priced considering tax and tip were included it was about three euros for a coffee. 

As we finished up our coffee around 11:00 the crowds and kids started to get thick. Apparently kids don’t like to get up early to go to museums, who knew?

As part of our route plan we decided to walk along the east? Side of the Acropolis to get to the Agora and then eventually to a market. The walk was nice enough, but somehow we took a right turn a little too early and ended up on the far western? side of the Agora, away from the main gate. By that point we decided to skip it and move on. Sorry Rick, we’ll pass on the Agora. 

We ended up going to the market and getting a magnet, we have one of every country we have been to, and then eating on the roof top of a place one of Aya’s coworkers had suggested. By that point we had walked about 15,000 steps so we were getting pretty tired and it was nearing 2pm. We decided it would be best to head back to the room and take a snooze. 

In the evening we decided to walk up Mt. Lycebettus as it was supposed to have good views of the city. From our hotel around Syntagma Square it was about a 45 minute walk, mostly up hill (yes, more walking, Athens city center is fairly compact). We got a bit turned around by Google’s directions on how to get up the hill, but it all worked out. By just after 5pm we were ready for sundown and indeed it was a nice view of the city as the lights on the Acropolis slowly came on. For anyone wondering, the lights begin to come on about 20 minutes after official sundown and took about 20 more minutes to come fully on. 

As the last rays of the sun faded we headed downhill and took the metro back to Syntagma Square and oh my there were a lot of tourists. The place was packed as was the shopping street off the square, but as you made your way to further side streets the crowds thinned. After dinner we made our plans for day two, a not as early wake up, but would it be a mistake!? Well, if we were starting out late, i was going to get up early and go for a run in the stadium!

I planned, a little too well, to arrive to the Olympic stadium right as it opened. I was early and so jogged a couple laps in a nearby park to keep warm and to rack up some kilometers. Being the first person in the stadium I naturally won every race I ran! It was very cool to see the stadium and have a run around all by. myself. Later that day Aya and I would come back to spend more time in the museum and with the audio guide, but that morning run was probably one of the best I will ever have. Very invigorating! 

Yes, kind of, but not really. We started a bit later and got the the Archeological Museum around 930, after it had opened, to find hordes of school kids at the entrance. We had visions of bleeding eardrums but in fact the groups were fairly quiet and since the museum was quite large we could just move in directions the groups were not.


Many parts of the museum we were entirely by ourselves, save for the attendants in each wing watching us, or their phones. It seemed the art was loosely guarded as each attendant had strategically placed their chairs by the outlets in the room to keep their phone charged as they crushed candy or killed angry birds or whatever one does day after day to kill the boredom of looking at thousands year old artwork. Many of the halls were only partially open and it seemed that there was some change and restoration going on. I couldn’t really tell, but it seems the museum pieces are well looked after. 

There were a few interesting tidbits here for me. One of the more interesting I thought was the, pictured, statue of a woman with her face bashed in. Apparently once you lose favor that was pretty common to have your statue destroyed. 

That afternoon after a quick nap at the hotel we circled south east to see the temple of Zeus and to go back to the Olympic stadium. I got to say, the Temple of Zeus is not much to see, though you can imagine how imposing it would have been so many years ago. Something that struck me, that always strikes me when seeing a lot of ruined ancient structures, is that the story goes that the temples or buildings or walls or whatever get slowly pilfered by the local community to build other stuff and then in the present you might get like, part of the Temple of Zeus in someone's backyard because a thousand years ago someone took it to build their chicken coop or whatever. I think we tend to look back on that and wonder how people could do that, but here we are in the present knocking down things left and right. Maybe a thousand years from now someone will find my piece of the Berlin wall resting in their basement and think, what a monster! How could they have taken away from such a historic site!? 

To cap off the end of another long day of walking (18,000 steps!) we decided to go to a rooftop restaurant Aya's coworker recommended and take in the Parthenon one last time. The next morning, we were off to Cyprus.