CE20_p34 to p37_Iceland_ads 6/8/2009 13:26 Page 1
Travel Iceland
FIRE &
ICE
Words and pictures
by Roger Brown
an Icelandic relative of fromage frais. mountain-fringed inlet with British
I
CELAND in February?
Totally barmy they said -
We stayed in the Reykjavik Centrum history. Brits were based here after
Hotel, a stylish conversion in the old town we invaded in 1939 – the Nissen huts
bankrupt, covered with and hired a 4x4 Skoda estate at £45 a and navy pier are still there. Jeremy
snow and they eat putrid
day, with diesel cheaper than UK. Clarkson’s ‘Top Gear’ more recently
It’s a big island, half the size of GB - occupied it. Stopping off for a snack
puffin. But Alison’s not a
with few living outside the capital and in Akranes we marvelled at the
beach person and I fancied a
challenging roads, which are not properly language skills of friendly Icelanders
challenging environment to
cleared outside towns. Driving’s not for where shop assistants spoke perfect
the nervous- over compact snow, down English. Mind you, if you spoke an
test a new camera, so off we the middle at 60 mph until you meet archaic Norse dialect with 20 letters
departed with no-frills airline,
someone else. Temperatures hung around you would have to be versatile.
-4c, mild by Cotswolds standards, where Moving on, we stopped at the
Icelandair.
civilisation ground to a halt at the same mysterious black lava beach at Ytri-
A sliding Kronur makes it great value time, with three inches of snow and no tunga, famous for summer seals, now
against the sickly pound. The government salt. deserted, except for tiny Icelandic
fell the week before when the population We drove north-west towards horses (don’t call them ponies) where
banged their saucepans against Snaefellnsess National Park, around freezing waves broke around lava
Parliament and covered MPs with Skyr – Hvalfjordur- ‘whale fjord’ a dramatic boulders and Alison fell into waist
34 COTSWOLDESSENCE | SEPTEMBER ~ NOVEMBER 2009
www.cotswoldessence.co.uk
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