Meandering the Country

Day 9 June 15, 2025  Happy Father’s Day! Today’s short drive across the northern section of Iceland took us from Mývatn to Akureyri with a few fun stops along the way. As we first headed out, we took a quick side trip to Grjótagjá Cave – a popular skinny-dipping spot in the age of “Peace, Love, and Music”.  Why does my head suddenly picture Woodstock?  Grjótagiá Cave is even better known as the site where a pretty famous scene from “Game of Thrones” was filmed.  Yep, the hot and steamy scene with Jon &Ygritte happened right here.  Due to recent volcanic action, the water temperature has increased to a dangerously hot level, making it a little too hot and steamy, even for them!  As you can guess, this beautiful blue water is from a hot spring and the cave is formed from lava.  Man, I do love this country!  So cool! In the year 1000 AD, a Viking lawspeaker by the name of Porgeir Ljósvetningagodi was given the enormous responsibility of decidin...

Days 7 -8 June 13-14, 2025 Today’s drive takes us along the northeast side of Iceland.  Our goal is to arrive in Mývatn, where we are staying for two nights. Remember me talking about the huge glacier, Vatnajökull ?  Well, our first stop along today’s route was to see Dettifoss , whose water makes it way here from Vatnajökull’s runoff.  No wonder this waterfall is the second most powerful waterfall in all of Europe!   There are a couple of different viewing platforms for Dettifoss , both of them from above the falls.  The first platform is pretty much smack dab next to it.  Although we couldn’t view the entire falls, seeing the river with the water approaching the falls, the falls themselves and the river as it continues on its way 144 feet below us was pretty impressive! The trail then led us further away from the falls, yet still right on the edge of the canyon.  From there, we felt the tremendous power of these falls.  We also felt the tr...