We got back from our epic 3 month European adventure a while back. It’s taken me a while to get through the thousands of photos and videos but I’m getting there. To get an idea of where we went check out the video animation above from tripline.net. Tripline is a new site that helps you share the places you plan to go or where you’ve been. It’s still in beta so there are a lot of features to be desired but still a cool travel site.
We travelled thousands of kilometers across 23 countries in Europe experiencing the best the continent has to offer. From the thermal pools of Iceland, the polar bears of Svalbard, running of the bulls in Spain, climbing the dolomites in Italy, experiencing the history of Budapest, hiking the glaciers of Switzerland, bobsledding in Austria, sipping wine in Burgundy and so, so much more. Stay tuned over the next few weeks for new blog posts of our adventures through Europe.
Scuba diving in the arctic, during the summer, in a snow storm.
Most people would think you are crazy to want to scuba dive in the arctic. Throw in a major snow storm and they will really think your really nuts to go diving. This doesn’t stop Dennis and his crew on the NatGeo Explorer from getting in the water to get some underwater video to show us. The only disappointing thing is they wouldn’t let me go with them
Instead, I was stuck on the deck taking pictures of the thousands of seabirds nesting on the sheer cliffs directly off the bow.
Taking pictures of the nesting seabirds on the cliffs of Alkefjellet
Alkefjellet cliffs from the deck of the NatGeo Explorer
As we were maneuvering away from the cliffs we disturbed the guillemots resting the water. It was quite a sight to see hundreds of these birds all “running” across the water to get out of the way of our ship.
Guillemot running away
These are the same birds nesting on the side of the cliffs so they must be able to fly. It’s curious why they choose to run across the water rather than fly away.
Guillemots running across the water
Jesus bird?
Our next step was Torelneset. After going on several of the hikes on the rather desolate gravel and tundra of Svalbad, the scenery was getting rather monotonous. I wasn’t real excited to go on another hike but we wanted to get off the ship and stretch our legs. Plus, you never know what you spot while out on a hike. Even though the wildlife is scarce out on the hikes there are still good pictures to be taken. You just need to be a little more creative to get something worth showing.
Svalbard Tundra
Torelneset had a walrus haul out which we spent an unfortunately small amount of time at. Lindblad does almost everything right but I was very disappointed in the amount of time (barely 15 minutes) we were allowed to spend taking photos of the walruses here. Given we went on an almost 2 hour hike around the desolate tundra I would have thought they could have given more time for the walruses. Oh well, you can’t win them all so you need to make the best of it and I think I was still able to get a few keepers. The light was very flat and grey so some significant amount of photoshop was needed.
Walrus haul out
Tusks up
Walrus duel
In addition to not having much time with the walruses, we weren’t able to get very close. The staff drew a line in the sand not to cross. I suppose it was for our safety since getting impaled by once of those tusks would not be very fun. Luckily my 500mm with doubler was able to bring them in fairly close.
Miki in front of walrus haul out
After our short walrus sighting the weather started to clear and we heading to one of my favorite places of the trip. The Austfonna ice cap. It’s the largest ice cap by area and second largest by volume in Europe. The largest glacier by volume in Europe is the Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland which we visited several weeks earlier. Glaciers are extremely photogenic. It’s hard to take a bad pictures of these amazing ice creations… especially when we had such fantastic light.
… and don’t forget to check out the gallery of the best pics from Iceland. You can download and/or purchase prints of any of the pics you’ve seen at the link below.
You would be surprised. Iceland doesn’t have that much ice. The landscape is green in many places as you can see from the pictures in my previous posts. However, if you come all the way to Iceland you need to find some ice so off we went to the Vatnajökull Glacier… and look… we found ice
Vatnajökull Glacier Lagoon in Jokulsarlon
The Vatnajökull Glacier is the largest glacier by volume in Europe. The second largest is in Svalbard, Norway which we also visited later during our Europe trip (more on that later).
Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon
The glacier lagoon in Jökulsárlón is a great photo destination. Huge pieces of the glacier calve off into this lagoon before they float out to sea and eventually melt. You can even take a cruise out into the lagoon to get up close and personal with the icebergs. The bergs weren’t as big as what we saw in Antarctica but still impressive none the less.
Climbing on the Vatnajökull Glacier
Our next stop on the ice tour in Iceland was to do some ice climbing on the Vatnajökull Glacier in Skaftafell National Park with Icelandic Mountain Guides. We were booked to do ice climbing but the eruption of Grimsvotn volcano in May, 2011 rained ash down all over the glacier. The ash made the glacier very dirty and would have gunked up the climbing gear possibly ruining it or at worst making it unsafe. So, we did the Full Day Adventure Tour instead which turned out to be a great tour.
I was initially pretty disappointed that we couldn’t go ice climbing and that the glacier was dirty. I really like taking photos of the vivid blue colors glaciers have. However, the dirty glacier had an interesting look and I got some unique pictures.
A Dirty Vatnajökull Glacier
While we didn’t get to go ice climbing we did get to use crampons and ice axes on our glacier hike which at least made us look cool.
All geared up on the Vatnajökull glacier
We also had a brief chance to rappel down into a in moulin. This may not look dangerous but moulins are holes that go straight down to the bottom of the glacier. The depth of the glacier around here is over 400 meters. Good thing the guides at Icelandic Mountain Guides know what they are doing because that is my wife on the end of the rope.
Rappelling into a Moulin
After a hard day of seeking out ice in Iceland a visit to the famous Blue Lagoon was a welcomed treat. It’s a little pricey to get in but it’s one of things you must do if you visit iceland. Don’t forget to smear the silica mud on your face. It’s suppose to have healing powers for various skin ailments… even if you don’t have a skin problem it still feels pretty good and looks even funnier.
Blue Lagoon Iceland
Rule #1 of portrait photography. Don't use a wide angle lens up close to your subject. Sorry Miki
Lastly, need to give a shout out to our trusty little Toyota Yaris that got us around in our search for Icelandic ice in style… well… maybe not in style but at least it got us around.
Iceland is famous for puffins. It is home to the largest colony of puffins in the world. My hopes were pretty high to walk away with some spectacular puffin photos… it was strange then (and very disappointing) that we only saw a handful on what was supposed to be a fantastic puffin photography experience.
We chose to go to the Ingólfshöfði nature reserve which is in the southeast corner of Iceland. It’s an isolated bluff a couple kilometers from land but it’s accesible by tractor.
Ingólfshöfði Nature Reserve (photo from top of the bluff)
The guide we hired was very knowledgable about the area and was a good photographer and just a plain nice guy. You can book the tour with him here.
Now to the puffins. First, there weren’t many of them and the ones that were there were all out at sea fishing. I did get a few decent shots but I was hoping for much better. I suppose it is a nature reserve and not a zoo so good sightings aren’t guaranteed. Plus it was overcast and raining on and off so nothing was really working in our favor that night.
Puffins
Puffin
Puffin
Puffed up Puffin
This is also a nesting spot for other birds like the Razorbills here…
Razorbills
and some pretty nasty Skuas
Nasty Skua
you can’t really blame him for being nasty though because he was only protecting his chick…
We used GoEcco, a local tour company, for a couple of the day tours we took from Reykjavik. Their White Night Hiking tour which is currently ranked as the number 1 thing to do on Tripadvisor in Iceland was one of the highlights of our trip. The landscape was amazing. It reminded me a lot of New Zealand and our guide mentioned that it was scouted as a possible location for Lord of the Rings but the weather was too unpredictable so it was ruled out. Luckily, we had great weather for our hike.
The hike itself is pretty easy so anybody can do it. You walk past steam vents, bubbling pools of mud, and some amazing landscapes as you can see below. The highlight of the trip is a dip in a natural hot spring.
White Night Hiking - iceland lanscape
White Night Hiking - Iceland Landscape
We also had some small snacks along the way. Hot dogs boiled in the hot spring.
Hot dogs cooked in hot spring
White Night Hiking - Iceland natural hotspring
Another tour we did with GoEcco was the Snæfellsnes tour. This was another good tour so do both if you have time but if you only have time to do one tour do the White Night Hiking.
The Snæfellsnes tour visits a natural hotspring, a nice pebble beach (with trolls), a few other sights on the peninsula and a local farm. A visit to the local farm was the highlight because it’s was the location of a unique and very tasty gourmet dinner.
Snæfellsnes - hidden natural hotspring
Snæfellsnes landscape
Snæfellsnes landscape
Check out this location for our gourmet dinner. This isn’t staged for tourists. This is an honest working farm and that is a real tractor with a real busted truck on the left with all kinds of junk laying around. This isn’t the kind of stuff you can’t get with the large tour companies or do by yourself. Only small tour companies like GoEcco can pull something like this off.
Iceland is a beautiful country with some amazing landscapes and unique wildlife. However, it does have a very quirky side to it as well. Specifically, they have some unusual folklore which is surprisingly believed by a large percentage of the population. Three of the most popular figures of icelandic folklore are the Elves, Trolls and Hidden People.
First up, the Elves…
Elf rock home
No. the guy in the red shirt is not an elf. He’s our guide explaining to us during a free walking tour of Reykjavik that this rock is a doorway to the elf world. How they know this is a bulldozer was trying to break up this rock in a nearby construction sight but after several attempts it only made some small marks in it. This somehow signified it was an elf rock and need to be moved to a safe place.
He went on to talk about a women who talks with elves, delays in construction, and other things but all I could remember is the amount of hassle they went through to move this elf rock. As the guide was telling the story he kind of laughed at the whole thing but in the same breath also tried to convince us that it could be true. We got this same kind of half laughing / half believing the folklore from several of the guides. It’s almost like they know it’s silly to believe it but just can’t help themselves.
Next up are the Trolls..
Troll Rock
No, the guy in the hat is not an Troll. He’s another one of our guides trying to point out the outline of a troll in the rock. Others in our group nodded saying that saw the troll but I couldn’t see anything. It was a rock and not that interesting of one either. There was a rock formation just off the beach that did have an outline somewhat similar to a person but you need to have a very good imagination. I suppose it’s not much different than Catholics seeing the virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast.
Troll Rock
Last up is my favorite. The Hidden People.
Iceland hidden people
No, that is not a hidden person. It’s just Miki. I tried to take a picture of a hidden person but I couldn’t find one so a picture of Miki hiding behind a rock acting like one was the best I could do. My favorite story of Icelandic folklore is about the hidden people and the cheating wife. Our guide explained a story that a husband comes home one day to his wife… his pregnant wife. The problem is that he has been gone for many months and the could not have fathered the baby. The husband confronts the wife and says how is this possible? The wife simply says a hidden person must have came through the window during the night at did this. The husband believes it without question and they raise the child as if it was his own.
But like I said at the beginning, Iceland isn’t just about their folklore. It’s a beautiful country with some spectacular scenery. One such place was Gullfoss falls.
Gullfoss falls
and the nearby Strokkur geyser is also a must visit spot.
Strokkur Geyser
there are also smaller waterfalls all over Iceland and are equally spectacular as the popular Gullfoss.
Waterfall in Iceland
Stay tuned for a few more posts from our tour of Iceland…
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