Ireland and Iceland - Day 16, 17 & 18 - Third Shabbat in Dublin and our two days in Northern Ireland

Well, Shabbat morning was raining (again) in Dublin. An interesting statistic: The average number of wet days (days with more than 1mm of rain) in Ireland ranges from about 150 days a year along the east and south-east coasts, to about 225 days a year in parts of the west. It rains so much here, that humourous Irish sayings include the following: "You know it's summer in Ireland when the rain gets warmer"!

So we bundled up with our ponchos and rain pants and made our way to shul. This week there were fewer people in shul. The tourist season ends with the beginning of school in September and so there were only a few tourists attending shul that morning.

As had happened on all three shabbatot in Dublin, the rabbi wished a Bon Voyage to another couple who were leaving Dublin for England to enjoy their retirement closer to their children. From our discussions with many people here, this is a common occurrence. This time the man who was leaving is the official archivist for the Irish Jewish community. He is the head of the Irish Genealogical Society and has amassed over 50000 names of current and former Irish Jews, which is now available on line and in a number of printed volumes at the Irish Jewish Museum. He, like the others before him, will be missed by this dwindling community. 

We ate again at Chazzan Alwyn and Nurit Shulman's home and as previously, there was a full table of guests, two young ladies from Karnei Shomron touring Ireland, another who had just moved to Dublin to work at one of the hi tech places, a couple from Jerusalem and us. Once again, a delicious meal and great conversation. 

We walked home in sunshine (!) and had a short 90 minute rest before walking back to shul for mincha and Seudah Shlishit (which we sponsored in gratitude to the shul for its hospitality). 

Sunday morning, we packed up and drove north (in a mixture of cloud and sunshine) to Northern Ireland, to the extreme northern coast of this small country. Northern Ireland is unique as compared to the Republic of Ireland, in that they have a different currency (the pound, equivalent to the British pound), different manner of measuring speed (miles instead of km.), and your Simcard that you installed in the Republic, no longer works in Northern Ireland. It is essentially a separate country with no clearly marked or official border crossing. 

Our destination was one of the most visited sites in Northern Ireland, the Giant's Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the foot of the cliff and disappear under the sea, hence the name "Causeway". Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides. 

 

Here is how Wikipedia describes this phenomenon: The tallest are about 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 ft) thick in places. The area where the Causeway is located, Antrim, was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau. As the lava cooled, contraction occurred and fractured in a similar way to drying mud, with the cracks propagating down as the mass cooled, leaving pillarlike structures, which are also fractured horizontally into "biscuits". In many cases the horizontal fracture has resulted in a bottom face that is convex while the upper face of the lower segment is concave, producing what are called "ball and socket" joints. The size of the columns is primarily determined by the speed at which lava from a volcanic eruption cools. The extensive fracture network produced the distinctive columns seen today. Here is a brief video:

https://youtu.be/cVFX9cmz5hU

You arrive at a visitor centre and then make your way down an easily walked paved path to the bottom of the cliff and the seashore. It is at this point that you can see this wonder of nature. Huge columns that look like they were formed by pouring concrete into moulds and nested together like paving stones. Amazing! Well worth the three hour drive this far to see this amazing site. 

 

It would have been much nicer if it was sunny with blue skies, but this is Ireland.

There is a minibus that will take you back and forth from the visitor centre and we opted to walk down and take the minibus back up the hill. 

From here we drove a short distance to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, a famous rope bridge that links the mainland to the tiny island of Carrickarede. It spans 20 metres and is 30 metres above the ocean and rocks below. Traditionally, fishermen erected the bridge every year to be able to get down to the ocean to check their salmon nets. 

 

 

Today it is owned by the National Trust and is a popular tourist attraction. It is advertised as an "exhilarating rope bridge experience and challenge"....not sure I would drive all this way to see it but if you are next door at the Giant's Causeway anyway, it is worth a stop. We thought that the Capilano bridge in Vancouver was much nicer.

The waterway in front of you at this point is one of the narrowest between Ireland and Scotland, and today, on a fairly clear day, Scotland was easily visible. 

 

From here, we drove for 90 minutes to our lodging for the next two nights in Belfast. Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, is a very small city of about 300,000 people in the city proper and about half a million in the metropolitan area. It is well known as the birthplace of the Titanic; built in the shipyards of Harland & Wolff. 

We had rented a very nice apartment right next door to the new Titanic exhibit, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the north of Ireland. 

On Monday morning we had made an appointment to visit the shul and the Rabbi in Belfast. 

A little history first....

During the 1860s and 1870s the first Jews arrived in Belfast because of the linen industry. A small number of German Jewish merchants arrived in Ulster and exported Irish linen across Europe and to North America and beyond.

The first synagogue was built in 1871 on Great Victoria Street. The community's founder, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, is commemorated by the ornate drinking fountain which is located today at an entrance to the Victoria shopping centre in Belfast and his son, Sir Otto Jaffe, was twice Lord Mayor of the city. 

In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, the number of Jews in what is today Northern Ireland increased to nearly a thousand with the arrival of refugees from Eastern Europe, who were fleeing poverty and persecution. Most of this second wave of Jewish immigration came from Lithuania but there was also a minority of Polish Jews. 

During the Second World War the community, took in refugees from Nazi-dominated Europe; a hostel was opened on Cliftonpark Avenue and in 1939, a refugee farm was established at Millisle County Down which was run along the lines of an Israeli kibbutz to house kindertransport children who were permitted entry into the UK on the eve of the war, but without their families.

One interesting item of trivia is that in 1918, Belfast boasted a future Israeli chief rabbi (Rabbi Dr. Isaac Halevi Herzog), a future Israeli president (Rabbi Herzog's son, Chaim) and a future Israeli foreign minister (Abba Eban, who was a WWI child evacuee to Belfast). 

At its height, the Jewish population of Northern Ireland (mainly Belfast) was about 1500. As a result, when the current synagogue on Somerton Road was built, it had enough seats to accommodate 1200 people. Today, as a result of the mass emigration during the Troubles between Protestants and Catholics, there are less than 100 individuals in Northern Ireland  who identify as Jews. 

 

When we met the current rabbi, David Singer, we spent a few moments playing Jewish geography until we discovered that he is related to my first cousin Rabbi Aaron Levine. Rabbi Singer was born in Birmingham England and his wife is from London. They have ten children and have lived for most of the last 40 years in Israel where he served in the IDF, was a medic and was one of the founders of the Israeli branch of Hatzoloh. He is also a schochet, a mohel and a sofer. Assuming the position as spiritual heads of the Belfast community at this stage in their lives was a challenge that he and his Rebbetzin wanted to tackle with the very positive and ambitious goal of not just maintaining the services to the community but expanding and widening them. 

He pointed out that given the 30 or so people who attend Shabbat morning services, Belfast likely has the highest per capita synagogue attendance of any city in the world!😀

We enjoyed our visit and were very impressed with his energy and dynamism. We wish him and his Rebbetzin much success in this very noble and ambitious venture. 

We then walked from our apartment to the downtown centre core of the city, to do some souvenir shopping. The city was definitely alive with many shoppers and tourists.

 

 

Next was the Titanic exhibit which is housed in a brand new 6 storey facility in the port area right next to where the actual ship was built. It is a self guided interactive tour which we thoroughly enjoyed. Parts of the ship have been restored so that you get a real feel for the way it must have been departing on the maiden voyage. 

 
 The Yiddish caption on the book cover in the Titanic exhibit says: The Titanic: The Wet Grave
 

Of all that we saw in Northern Ireland, the Giants Causeway and the Titanic are reasons why one should make the effort to visit this part of the island. 

On Tuesday morning we drove the 90 minutes back to Dublin and this time we were staying close to the port of the city, which is accessible by highway thru a new tunnel that literally cuts 6 Kms. under the centre of the city and has eased traffic in the core of the city.

From our apartment, it was a short three stop train ride to the heart of the city. 

We next visited the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin, which is housed in one of the old shuls close to downtown which was where much of the Jewish community lived in the mid 1900s. It was a small museum but packed with information, old pictures, memorabilia, religious artifacts and records. For a small community, we were impressed with the vast amount of items on display and with the dedication that the community has in preserving its past. Here is a very interesting 1949 letter from the Shechita Board.

 

We dropped into the nearby Bretzel Bakery, which at one time was Jewish owned and totally kosher. Under its current non Jewish owners, there is still hashgacha on all the breads but not on the pastries and cakes. We wanted to try an Irish soda bread and that is what we took home for dinner. 

 

In the evening we roamed around the downtown of Dublin and went to see a Woody Allen movie, Cafe Society, which we would recommend. Typical Woody Allen fare.

The next morning we drove 40 minutes to the Powerscourt Gardens. It was on everyone's list of must dos while in the Dublin area. We can attest to the fact that the gardens were nice, but I would only do this if I had little else to do. Clearly we have seen much nicer gardens In our travels.

 

 

In the evening we visited a pub in the popular Temple Bar district and enjoyed a shandy (beer and lemonade) while listening to Irish music and watching some Irish dancing. It was a fitting end to a very enjoyable trip to Ireland and Iceland and we would highly recommend that you put both these places on your "bucket list". 

In tribute to the wonderful Irish sense of humour that we experienced almost every time we struck up a conversation with a local Irishman, we will end with a couple of popular Irish jokes and sayings.

*************

McQuillan walked into a bar and ordered martini after martini, each time removing the olives and placing them in a jar. When the jar was filled with olives and all the drinks consumed, he started to leave. 

'S'cuse me,' said a customer, who was puzzled over what McQuillan had done. 'What was that all about?' 

'Nothing,' he replied, 'my wife just sent me out for a jar of olives.'

*****************

Hills as green as emeralds 

Cover the countryside 

Lakes as blue as sapphires- 

And Ireland's special pride 

And rivers that shine like silver 

Make Ireland look so fair- 

But the friendliness of her people 

Is the richest treasure there.

*************

Whenever there is happiness 

Hope you'll be there too, 

Wherever there are friendly smiles 

Hope they'll smile on you, 

Whenever there is sunshine, 

Hope it shines especially

To make each day for you 

As bright as it can be.

**************

Looking forward to sharing our travels with you in the future,

All the best

Fran and David

Ireland and Iceland - Day 14 &15 - Thursday's visit to a Garden of Eden and Baking Bread and Friday's return to Ireland

On Thursday morning, we were once again blessed with a sunny and brilliant blue sky.

In a number of fellow bloggers' posts, we had read about Gjain, which was described by most who had been there, as the "Garden of Eden", "fairy tale world" and "pearl in the desert". And yet if you read most published guide books to Iceland, it is rarely mentioned.

Perhaps that should have been a clue to us that this is not an easy accessible place. 

I entered it into Waze and into Google Maps and both apps gave me directions. And so, confident that we could get there, we set off on the two hour drive to Gjain. And guess what, both Waze and Google maps directed me to different places in the same vicinity and the recommended sign posts indicated in the blogs I had read were either too small and faded to read or were non existent. 

But we had come this far, and so we continued to search. We finally came to a dirt road with a small faded sign and an indication that the road was restricted to 4 x 4 vehicles, which we did NOT have. But we had come this far and were not going to be deterred. We carefully drove the road and finally saw another car coming toward us. We asked whether we could get there with our car and they told us that there were others in the Gjain parking lot with non 4 x 4 vehicles, so we continued on our way.

It was a rocky uneven road and we even had to drive thru a small creek until we finally arrived at the parking area. I should say that in the many Kms surrounding this spot, we saw only desolation, almost desert type conditions with little growing and rocks everywhere, just like the following picture:

 

But talk about a dramatic contrast! When we walked to the top of the hill and looked down in the small valley beneath us, the sight simply took our breath away. Literally like a Garden of Eden! Paradise! A Pearl in the Desert! It is simply impossible to capture in words what we saw, it was too perfect and too beautiful. And while we took some good pictures, we will also share with you a few pictures that we found on the Internet that were taken by professionals. 

First, a number of our pictures; our view from the parking lot, above Gjain in the valley below:

 

 And a few from the floor of the valley:

 

 

It was what we call the "Oseh Maaseh Bereishit" moment (a Hebrew blessing that you say when you see a wonder of God's creations!).

And now the pictures online taken by professionals:

 

And a little video, so you can hear the sounds of this magical place:

https://youtu.be/nV2uLUCT_CA

This is truly a breathtaking place located in the Þjórsárdalur valley. It is one of the hidden treasures of Iceland. Rauðá river (Red River) runs through here, with a small lovely waterfall ever so beautifully framed by the surroundings. It is called Gjárfoss falls and cascades into the gorge of Gjáin. We spent about an hour in this beautiful fairyland filled with waterfalls, columnar basalt, lush vegetation and angelica in abundance.

There were a few other visitors; and we have to conclude that the reason why this is not a popular tourist spot is because it is so difficult to get to; tour buses cannot get in and it is off the beaten path but it was definitely worth the trip to Gjain.

Interestingly, while walking thru the garden, I heard a voice saying "you will not find a minyan here". We met a visitor from the UK who, after playing Jewish geography for a few moments, knew my namesake, first cousin from Manchester. Small world!

From here we journeyed to the small town of Laugavatn, to the spa called Fontana. Laugarvatn belongs to a hot zone. In the grounds of the village, the lake and the shore of the lake you'll find boiling waters erupting into hot springs. This hot water and various hot springs have been used for cooking, bathing, geothermal househeating and healing steam bathing.

We came here, not for the spa or the hot springs but to bake geothermal bread. We had found on the Internet that in this spa, they bake special rye bread and what is unique about it is that the bread is baked in the ground. 

We wrote to them, explained that we had a very strict kosher diet and asked for the ingredients. They were all purely natural and kosher. But there was still the pot and the method of greasing or lining the pot. So we asked whether they would buy a new pot for us, grease the pot with butter only and bake us a loaf of this special rye bread. They agreed. 

The ingredients are mixed together in the pot and then the pot is placed into the ground for about 15 to 20 hours whereupon it is dug out of the hot steaming earth and voila, you have a loaf of bread. 

We arrived and went to the lakefront where you could see mounds of earth indicating the number of loaves currently being baked. This is a video of our guide digging the bread out of the boiling ground.

https://youtu.be/ZhJGgjnwW1g

Our guide took her shovel and dug our pot out of the ground and we had a steaming hot, very dense, dark rye bread. We went into the spa and she cut the bread for us, which we buttered and tasted....delicious. 

 

 

 

 

And now for the tasting.....

https://youtu.be/c0htJOQtnqo

Within the list of ingredients, there were 5 cups of rye, 2 cups of flour  2 cups of sugar and so the bread must have weighed over 5 pounds when it emerged from the pot. 

 

We tasted a few slices and then were able to take the remainder of the bread with us. Most expensive loaf we have ever bought, but what a "chavaya" (Hebrew for "experience")!

Our last day in Iceland and we had not yet been to the most visited tourist attraction in Iceland, the Blue Lagoon. The spa is located in a lava field between Reykjavik and the airport in Keflavik. It is a man-made lagoon which is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal plant and is renewed every two days. 

In 1976 a pool formed at the site from the waste water of the geothermal power plant that had just been built there. In 1981 people started bathing in it after its purported healing powers were popularized. In 1992 the Blue Lagoon company was established and the bathing facility was opened for the public.

The warm waters,  averaging 37 - 39 degrees C., are rich in minerals like silica and sulphur and therefore are reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis.  

We drove from the spa/bakery to see the Blue Lagoon. The approach to it off the main airport expressway was through a desolate looking lava field. And then you turn into the parking lot and you see a modern facility which is the Blue Lagoon. What amazed us was the number of people. We did not arrive until 7 PM and the place was packed with tourists. It is a huge lagoon and the building attached to it has a restaurant and a very large and busy gift shop selling medicated cleansers and creams under the Blue Lagoon name. 

 

There must have been 400 to 500 people in the building and the lagoon. Entry is quite steep, at €40 to €70 euro a person. And most people are there not for the therapeutic or medicinal benefits but rather for the "chavaya". 

We headed back to our apartment to complete our packing and get ready for a very early morning drive to the airport.

Our flight to Dublin for our third Shabbat there was at 6:15 AM and therefore we had to be at the airport by 4:30 AM, so we left the apartment at 3:45 AM.

The flight was smooth, we picked up our car rental and since we were in the same Airbnb for this Shabbat, we went right over, unpacked and got everything ready for Shabbat.

We spent the rest of the day at the Kildare Outlet Mall, about a 30 minute drive away. 

On Friday night after davening, we were invited once again to Tova and Lewis Citron's home and they had a full table; there were 11 of us in total. They are such gracious hosts and we thoroughly enjoyed the food, the company, the conversation and the lively zemirot. Lewis in fact taught me the tune for the end of benching sung to Paddy McGuinty, a popular Irish tune. 

We got home after midnight and looked forward to the next stage in our third Shabbat in Dublin. 

More to come

All the best

Fran and David

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Ireland and Iceland - Day 12 & 13 - Tuesday in Reykjavik and Wednesday on the Southern Coast

After Monday's long day of exploring the Golden Circle Tour of Iceland, and because of the forecasted wet and overcast day on Tuesday for the whole of Iceland, we decided to put off touring the beautiful sites for Wednesday and Thursday. As a result, we slept in and then made our way to one of the two large malls in town to see what the retail landscape in Iceland looked like. 

To put it in a word, it did not look like much. Most of the stuff was priced high and the selection was not to our liking. So we moved on to the downtown area, where we joined the Free Walking Tour of Reykjavik. 

 

The tour guide was entertaining, due no doubt to his regular job as a stand up comedian. We were about 15 in the group and we criss-crossed our way thru the downtown area, learning a lot about the history and customs of Iceland. The tour took about 2 hours and tho' it was not the best walking tour we have taken, it was a good way to pass a rainy and cloudy day.

Wednesday morning looked promising weather wise and so we left early as we wanted to drive the Southern Coast and visit a number of places that had been recommended in many travel blogs that I had read in preparation for this trip.

Our first stop was after leaving the urban centre and driving about 30 minutes between Reykjavik and the small town of Hveragerði, at the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant and Energy Exhibition, where in the visitor centre you can learn about how they take the steam from the ground, turn it into electricity, heat the water, and then pump it back underground, and deliver to to the citizens of Iceland. You can see the huge turbines they use to do this, in addition to all manner of displays, touch screens, informative displays and nifty gadgets.

During the course of the 20th century, Iceland went from what was one of Europe's poorest countries, dependent upon peat and imported coal for its energy, to a country with a high standard of living where practically all stationary energy is derived from renewable resources. In fact, Alcoa and other primary aluminum manufacturers (a process that requires the use of much electricity) built smelters in Iceland because of the low energy costs.

Iceland is located in one of the most tectonically active places in the world with over 200 volcanoes and 600 hot springs. Of the hot springs, there are 20 that are high temperature steam fields of at least 150 degrees C, with some reaching 250C. The geothermal energy harnessed from these steam fields are used to heat houses and provide hot water in abundance. 

In 1907, a farmer ran a concrete pipe from a hot spring that led steam into his home. In 1930, a pipeline was constructed in Reykjavik to heat 2 schools, 60 homes and the main hospital. 

Beneath the visitor centre is located a large high temperature source of water and in order to access it, they are drilling down about 3000 metres (roughly 2 miles)! There are plans to drill further (5000 metres) to access even hotter sources of water. The hot water is sent to a steam separator which then is used to a) heat colder (closer to surface water) and b) to be activated in a turbine to create electricity. 

The hot water is sent by pipeline 27 Kms to Reykjavik and in that journey only loses 2C of its heat. The pipelines in the district heating system created by this project are over 3000 Kms long, roughly the distance from Reykjavik to Milan, Italy. The amount of water running through the system in one hour at peak usage is equivalent to the water that would fill 440 large oil tankers. Almost 100% of the homes in Reykjavic are supplied with water and heat through this system. 

To put it into perspective, the cost to a consumer living in a 100 sq. meter residence, is about $100 Canadian per month for all his heat, electricity, hot and cold water; i.e. in a 3000 square foot home in Canada, it would run about $300 per month!  

And whereas in Ireland, in every apartment we rented, there were switches to turn on before using hot water or electricity of any kind (in order to conserve energy and because of the high cost); here in Iceland, the instructions for the apartment we rented were to use as much electricity or hot water as we wanted; leave the lights on if necessary, as the cost is cheap and renewable. 

As we left the centre, we could see the lines of zig zag pipelines (constructed this way to allow for flexibility in the next earthquake...yes, they are expecting them every day.....yikes!) that traverse the distance to Reykjavik and beyond. 

 

We now headed east on Route 1. Before we tell you about the town of Hveragerði, we must tell you about the area through which you are driving. It is called the heath, (defined as an area of open uncultivated land) and it is one of the strangest landscapes that we have ever seen. Miles and miles of mossy covered craggy volcanic lava rocks as far as the eye can see. 

 

There is no life, just this mossy colour and rock everywhere. We just had to stop to really experience what we were seeing. We pulled over to the side of the road and it truly was an eye opener. Instead of what we expected as a very hard ground beneath us, the surface was in a word "spongy"!  You should watch this video to really understand what we are trying to depict. 

https://youtu.be/tbNAQkOh1Xk

If you stay on route 1, 45 km. East of Reykjavik, the heath ends abruptly with a steep descent into the charming town of Hveragerði, and you can see lots of columns of steam rising up, here and there, in the town and in the surrounding valley, surrounded by the Hengill Mountains. 

Hveragerði, whose name comes from the Icelandic word for hot spring, "hver", is one of Iceland’s most popular tourist destinations. The reason: the town is built above a geological hot spot. Throughout the year white plumes of steam stretch to the sky, which in summer is joined by the colour green. Trees grow all over Hveragerði––a green revolution of recent years––and the residents perennially work on making their town bloom.

As you enter the town you pass an area of greenhouses which have provided the country with much of its home grown produce since the 1920s. 

On the right side of the road is Sunnumörk Shopping Mall, a small mall with a supermarket, bank, a Tourist information centre, a couple of souvenir stores and the reason we stopped, an exhibit called "Quake 2008". The exhibit shares the experience of the huge 2008  earthquake of more than 6 on the Richter scale, the damage it caused and how it affected local residents. There are television screens with videos taken by locals who were shopping in the centre and how items crashed to the ground from supermarket shelves. 

To fully appreciate how quickly and dramatically this can occur, watch this 18 second video:

https://youtu.be/c0btsEXUf2U

Apparently it is not the first time that the town was in the middle of a quake. A huge earthquake crack that was found at the building site in 2003 is covered in glass and visible to visitors at the centre. 

The exhibition is free except for a short simulator that can be experienced by visitors. It simulates a 6+ Richter earthquake and we decided it would be something we should experience. It only lasted a minute or two, but it gave you a real feeling of total helplessness that one would experience when caught in the middle of one of these freaks of nature. 

The town is also the site of the Icelandic National Gardening School which has greenhouses that gain enough heat from the hot springs to grow bananas, tomatoes and avocados. 

 

We wanted to visit the Geothermal Park, where a short trail leads around a number of bubbling, smelly hot springs. We were told that one could buy an egg to boil in one of the pools and we thought that might be a very interesting (and kosher) experience. But in the days before our arrival, the heat in the hot springs had gone from boiling temperature down to 80C and that would not allow us this experience. So our geothermal experience of cooking (or baking) would have to wait for Thursday afternoon...more to come on that.

We had now completed all our indoor activities for the day and we spent the rest of the day on our long southern drive doing what we love most; seeing amazing nature and more of God's wonderful creations. Mountains, amazing scenery, the North Atlantic Ocean, small villages, and waterfalls galore. 

Along this route there are three waterfalls that are what one would call "do not miss" highlights of Iceland. 

About a one hour drive from Hveragerði is Seljalandsfoss, an incredible waterfall which falls 60 metres from the river Seljalandsá. What makes it incredible is not its height but rather the fact that where it hits the ground, there is the mouth of a cave and you can literally walk all the way around the waterfall. It is a very beautiful place and yes, you will get wet. Want to give you the real feeling...so first a short video and then two pics that we took and one that we did not take.

https://youtu.be/sTuIFVf1NpY

 

 

 

It was quite windy when we arrived and fortunately we had brought with gear for the wet experience of this waterfall. So we bundled up and got involved in the total experience of this  walk around waterfall. 

Had I not read a number other travellers blogs, I never would have known that just a half a km. up the road, there was another waterfall, one that is somewhat hidden and which many visitors miss totally. It is called Gljúfurárfoss (‘Canyon river waterfall’).

It is located within a mini narrow slot canyon and because most people often miss this site, you sometimes have the experience totally to yourself. It is hard to describe; you walk a short distance from the parking area to a cave opening. There is a small stream running out of the cave and you sort of have to walk on slippery pebbles to get inside this slot canyon. A slot canyon is one that is totally closed except for a narrow opening at the top of the canyon where you can see the blue sky above. So you are in a cave with light seeping in from above and lo and behold a waterfall coming into the cave. 

I was the only one inside, and it was truly an awesome experience. I took some pics but would like to share with you mine and a much better pic that I found on the Internet. First mine....

And now some that I found online:

 

 

 We drove another 30 minutes to reach Skogafoss, another impressive waterfall, that seemed to have a rainbow above it the entire time we were there. Once again you can walk right up to it and walk through the very shallow stream that resulted from the immense amount of water streaming over the cliffs. 

 

 

Along the road, continuing east, you drive past Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano/glacier whose eruption grounded many flights in 2010, because of the ash that was strewn up into the atmosphere. At the time we were in Israel and our Air Canada flight was cancelled and we were diverted to a Continental flight thru Newark in order to return to Toronto. Two pics follow, the first is now and the second is while the volcano was erupting.

 

 

The picture of the farm right below the volcano as it looks today, is an amazing tribute to the resilience of the Icelandic people who seem to be able to rebound from these periodic natural disasters and rebuild their lives and homes. 

Finally, we reached the very tiny fishing village of Vik where we parked and walked down to the beach. Vik is located along a dramatic stretch of coastline, between glacier topped mountains, rugged sea cliffs and black sand beaches. Vik is Iceland’s most southerly village and one of the most popularly photographed areas in the country. Here is a short video showing the black sand.

https://youtu.be/Qb194py4L-4

 

We noticed that earlier visitors had taken white stones and had printed out their names and the names of their countries on the black sandy beach. So feeling kind of patriotic (and to underscore the fact that Iceland rarely sides with Israel), we created a stone Magen David and sang Hatikvah on this remote beach on the southern coast of Iceland.

https://youtu.be/T2JX5OLxdPI

It was a long 2 hour drive back to Reykjavik. It had been a beautiful and very fulfilling day.

More to come

All the best

Fran and David

Ireland and Iceland - Day 11 - Monday - first full day in Iceland and our Icelandic Observations

Before reporting on our first day of exploring Iceland, we would like to share with you two sculptures that are at the Keflavik International Airport when you arrive in Iceland. 

The first is called the Jet Nest by Magnus Tomasson. It depicts a jet airplane wing breaking out of the shell of an egg.

 

 The second sculpture at the International Airport in Keflavik is by Ruri Fannberg and is a 24 metre high portion of a rainbow. 

 

And now, we would like to begin our discussion of Iceland with some of our observations on Icelandic living and culture. 

While researching for our visit here, we found a couple of websites that dealt with Jewish life in Iceland. One is from a group of Jews who live in Iceland and one is a site run by Chabad Rabbi Naftali Pewzner, who visits here regularly and runs an annual Pesach Seder in Iceland. There is a small number of Jews living in Iceland (50 to 100 people) and there is no organized Jewish life. There is no Chabad House.

As far as kashrut is concerned, here is what we found in the supermarkets. Dry bread such as Ryvita and Wasa, Nature Valley Granola bars, Hellman mayo, Hunt's tomato sauce products (look for those with an OK, as many cans have cheese), Cadbury, KitKat, and Mars Bars from the UK, Ben and Jerry Ice Cream, Skippy Peanut Butter, some jams on the UK list, and Kellogg cereals. Of course, there is pasta, eggs, fresh and frozen salmon, fresh fish (if you can identify them as kosher), fruits and veggies. We will caution that you should have the apps on your devices called "Is It Kosher?". There is one that basically collates kosher lists from many different countries and then there is one specifically from the London Beth Din (KLBD). Both are very helpful in identifying items without kosher labelling as kosher or not. 

So all in all, if you carry a fry pan and soup pot as we do, and if you have access to a cooktop, you can eat very well in Iceland. Below is a pic of a salmon meal that we ate in Reykjavik. 

 

On the other hand, if you are staying in a hotel and cannot self cater, it would be advisable to shlep with tuna, cheese, salami, instant soups, etc and supplement with fresh veggies and fruit. 

We expected a freezing and very windy climate. And we came prepared. But most of our gear stayed packed away, because it was quite peasant. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday were days of occasional brilliant sunshine and when it was sunny, it felt much warmer than Dublin, even tho the temperature in Iceland was 13C and Ireland was close to 20C. The sun was very warm in Iceland. Only on Tuesday when it was raining or drizzling most of the day did we feel a bit cold. 

As you can see from our pictures on the first full day in Iceland, we were enjoying walking around without sweaters and with open coats. 

 

 

We were told that during the winter, it can be very cold and icy. But downtown Reykjavik has an underground piping system beneath the streets and sidewalks to melt all the snow and ice and so the downtown area stays clear. They are able to do this because of the geothermal power that Iceland possesses in abundance...more about that later.

Things are very expensive in Iceland. Basic food costs, even in the Bonus Supermarket chain, which is supposedly the cheapest in Iceland, are extremely high. We looked at clothing in a number of stores and items were double what we would pay in Canada. Souvenir items were out of sight. Souvenir T-shirts which in most places would be in the $10-12 range were $40 each. However, our visit here was extremely affordable because we were self catering, the Airbnb costs were reasonable, the car rental costs were affordable and the waterfalls, national parks, glaciers etc. are not expensive to visit. On the other hand, if you are taking organized tours to see the waterfalls, glaciers etc., they can get quite pricey.

The official language is Icelandic which is difficult to pronounce and which seems to favour very long words, with many consonants and a few unique letters. For instance, the letter þ, is called thorn and is pronounced like our "th". And since it is considered the first language of 97% of Icelanders, most printed items and labels on food products in the supermarket are in Icelandic. Thankfully almost everyone speaks English fluently and they are eager to help. Incidentally, the largest population of Icelandic speakers outside of Iceland is in the province of Manitoba, Canada and specifically around the town of Gimli (which means heaven in Old Norse). 

Street addresses are quite interesting. We are used to 123 Main Street, Suite 541. Well, in Iceland, each Suite has a specific street address. As an example we were staying in an apartment complex and our address was 165 Frostafold. Our neighbour above us in the same building was in 166 Frostafold. 

But the naming of people is the most interesting. There are no family names. My Icelandic name would be David Sidneyson (may father's name is Sidney) and Fran would be Frances Mailechdottir (Fran's father's name is Mailech). My oldest child is Chavi Daviddottir who is married to Yisrael Yitzchakson. So married people have different last names. When people date, they check the app that traces the roots of the prospective mate so that you do not end up marrying a close relative. Everyone's last name ends with either "son" or "dottir".

Geographically, Iceland is 30% larger than Ireland, which makes it 5 times the size of Israel. However, in terms of population, there are only 320,000 people in the whole country with about half of them living in the Reykjavik area. So it is a very sparsely populated country. 

As a matter of interest, the number of tourists coming to Iceland has now exceeded 1 million annually.

The currency is the Icelandic Kroner and it is about the equivalent of one penny. So if you see something that costs 5000 kroner, it is really $50 Canadian. However, the guidebooks all tell you that you do not need to exchange money because the credit card is king in Iceland and every transaction has an option for credit card payment. 

Monday morning we left very early on what is called the Golden Circle Route. It covers the southwestern area of the island and depending how many stops you make, can take the better part of a day driving. 

Unlike Ireland, where we had been for a week, this time we were driving on the same side as we do in Canada. The roads are very well maintained and they are certainly wider than some of the roads that we drove on in Ireland. There is not a lot of traffic and drivers tend to be very courteous. 

Once you get out of the city, you are amazed by the wide open spaces and areas where the landscape is so flat that you can see for miles. Fran kept remarking that the sky seemed so much larger in Iceland and we think it was because the flatness of the landscape just allowed so much more of the horizon to be seen. It was magnificent. 

 

We left Reykjavic and drove to Þingvellir, (pronounced Thingvellir), and its surrounding National Park, which literally means the Parliament Plains. This is a very historic site in Iceland being the location of the Icelandic Parliament from the year 930 till 1798. Below is a picture of the area with the old parliament buildings in the foreground. 

 

 

But in addition to the historical and political relevance, there are magnificent views overlooking Þingvallavatn, Iceland's largest lake, the moss covered cliffs and the stunning surroundings. 

 

 

But by far the most important feature of this beautiful place is its special tectonic and volcanic activity, as one of the few places on the planet where you can see Earth visibly tearing apart as the North American and Eurasian plates drift away from each other creating these huge fissures in the earth, that are widening by about an inch a year. 

 

 There is a huge rift throughout the National Park, that measures up to 40 metres deep and 64 metres wide in some places. 

 

This rift extends from dry land through the lake itself, creating one of the most breathtaking and deepest diving spots in the world, with almost totally clear water, filtered through volcanic rock. The picture below is not one of us (we have not done this....yet😀) but a stock picture that I found on the Internet showing a diver between the two plates. 

 

This is an area of extremely active volcanic activity and earthquakes occur a number of times per day!! In fact here is a computer screen image of the earthquakes that occurred in the 48 hours since our arrival on Sunday...2 of them over 4.2 on the Richter scale (see the green stars). No worries😀!

 

And so there are bus loads and bus loads of tourists all over the park. And on this most clear day with an amazing blue sky, the views were wonderful, the Kodak moments plentiful. 

We then drove another hour or so to the "town" of Geysir. There are many geothermal active regions in Iceland and wherever you drive, you will notice little puffs of steam on the horizon. 

 

No, this is not someone's fireplace spewing smoke into the atmosphere, but rather steam rising from the earth, which is an indicator of a geothermal system beneath the surface. There are either underground springs or rain that seeped beneath the surface, was heated and then rises as steam, creating plumes of mist visible as you drive around the Island. 

There are some 800 hot springs, with average temperature of 75C, in Iceland. In fact, Reykjavik, Icelandic for 'Smoky Bay', was named for steam rising from hot springs, and early settlers chose this place for its accessibility to the hot springs which they used for bathing, cooking and laundering. 

The most famous hot spring, the Blue Lagoon, was discovered in the 1960s when local people observed steam rising from the ground after a rainfall. 

In Geysir, the geothermal activity is very vigorous and it results in eruptions of plumes of water into the sky, with a strong sulphur smell all around. It was the first spouting hot spring to be recorded in print and therefore has become the namesake of all other geysers, including "Old Faithful" in Yellowstone. There are two main areas in Geysir, the larger of the two sometimes called the Great Geysir (from the Old Norse verb "Geysa", meaning "to gush") and the smaller called Strokkur. The Great Geysir erupts infrequently but when it does, the eruption can result in 70 metre plumes of boiling water into the air. Strokkur erupts very frequently (roughly every 5 minutes) and reaches heights of up to 30 metres. 

As a result, there is always a circle of viewers surrounding Strokkur waiting for it to erupt and when we were there, it did not disappoint. We filmed a number of eruptions and then walked through a very active field dotted with pools of boiling, bubbling hot water. It was quite amazing. 

 

Here are a few videos...we waited and tried to film the geyser as it erupted and with much patience, we were successful!

David at Geysir.    https://youtu.be/0-JeNoJhtmM

Fran at Geysir    https://youtu.be/8zWu3fFhXdg

Boiling water in the ground at Geysir.     https://youtu.be/cZF0ZeLps2k

The third main spot on the Golden Circle Tour is the short drive to Gullfoss, (literally "Golden Falls"), Iceland's most famous waterfall. On this trip we saw numerous waterfalls and while Gullfoss is dramatic and very powerful and definitely worth visiting (especially as it is just ten minutes up the road from Geysir, which you must visit), it was not our favourite. The tourist board has erected very good pathways which lead to both the top and bottom of the falls, allowing visitors a full vantage point for panoramic shots as well as the close up view of the roaring falls. 

 

The waterfall goes through two steps of falls as it cascades down the river and then plunges 30 metres into the Rift Valley riverbed below, creating lots of mist and a roaring sound. 

 

We took our time driving, admiring the amazing scenery of rocky mountains, many times covered in enormous glaciers, areas filled with moss covered lava stones, raging rivers, fertile valleys dotted with farms, and many lush green fields filled with cows, sheep and the famous Icelandic horses.

 

The first settlers in the 10th Century brought with them horses from Norway and the British Isles. In the 11th century, import of horses was made illegal and so for the past 900 years, no horses have been imported. And therefore the Icelandic horse you see today is very similar to the original horses brought by the settlers, 1100 years ago. This isolation has preserved certain traits lost to other European horses over the years, the most noticeable of which is the 5 gaits (rather than the three of the Europeans) that the horse is famous for. Not a horse expert, but those who understand these things will understand.

 

What is also noticeable is that the horses are shorter and their manes are left to run wild and unkempt.

Truth be told, our impression of the Icelandic landscape before we came, was nothing like what we had found. What really surprised us was the diversity of the landscape. On the one hand the green colour, the wide open farming areas filled with grazing animals, surrounded by towering hills and mountains, all very beautiful and fresh (and not what we expected at all), contrasted with miles of desolate colourless lava fields, craggy mountains and immense glaciers. 

We returned to Reykjavik after a wonderful day of seeing more of God's amazing creations and there was still much more to see in the coming days. We ended the day with a beautiful sunset...not the Northern Lights but beautiful nevertheless.

 

All the best

Fran and David