It’s a must. You cannot pass through Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, without traveling the famous Golden Circle, a circuit of around 300 kilometers which notably connects three sites of great natural and historical wealth.
You can stay there for two or three days to explore these places in depth and add stops here and there to enrich your experience. But, pressed for time, you can do the tour in seven or eight hours. It’s a bit quick, but with a talkative guide for example, you can learn a surprising amount of facts about Iceland, its history and its people.
To be voluble, Matthias is. When we arrived at the first stop, Thingvellir, the Gray Line guide had already explained to us how Iceland was placed directly on the fault that separates the tectonic plates of North America and Europe. This fault widens by about two centimeters per year.
Thingvellir is one of the fissures that this rift has created over the years.
For a few days, families from all over the country gathered to obtain information, pass judgment on a certain number of crimes, trade and find a spouse for their child.
Until recently, a thousand-year-old path gently descended between these walls. But now, in 2011, we noticed a small hole of around thirty square centimeters in the middle of the trail. Only to realize, oops, that the earth had seriously cracked underneath. A series of earthquakes may have accelerated the slow work of geological tugging.
The authorities have built a wooden walkway over the chasm and visitors can once again descend to the site of the Althing to try to relive in their imagination the golden days of the Viking parliament, when the ancients condemned the wicked to death. exile and that young women made eyes at well-built men.
Back on the bus, Matthias talks to us about geothermal energy, an omnipresent source of electricity and heating in Iceland. That’s good, we arrive at Geysir, a geothermal site which gave its name to the geysers, these jets of boiling water and steam which shoot sporadically into the sky.
It is much smaller than the original Geysir, but much more valiant. You just have to wait a little, prepare the camera, then boom, the jet rises. Be careful not to get downwind: you risk ending up soggy and smelling of sulfur.
The site is interesting because there are several other springs nearby that gurgle and bubble, with small clouds of steam that create an early world atmosphere.
The next site, Gullfoss, is equally impressive. It is a gigantic waterfall which tumbles into a narrow canyon, projecting spray onto visitors. You have to take advantage of the clearings to quickly photograph the rainbow silhouetted above the water.
Reykjavik, with its small colorful houses, its narrow streets lined with shops and cafes, its iconic church, Hallgrímskirkja, which recalls the large basalt columns of volcanic origin, is also worth discovering. CityWalk Reykjavik offers guided walking tours. You need to understand English, but the effort is definitely worth it.
That morning, a comedian from the Dominican Republic, Mauricio Rodriguez, meets us at the foot of the statue of Jón Sigurðsson, leader of a 19th-century Icelandic independence movement, in front of the parliament building (the Atlhing has moved here in 1881).
Mauricio is a keen observer of Icelandic society and he depicts it with affection and humor. In particular, it tells how parents choose the names of their children and how, in this tiny, tight-knit society (there are 370,000 inhabitants in Iceland), you have to be careful not to accidentally find yourself in a relationship with your third cousin. Apps exist to surreptitiously check the family tree of that charming young man at the bar!
Our guide also gives some good advice to avoid tourist traps. “If you are offered fermented shark, don’t touch it,” he says. Icelanders haven’t eaten this horror for decades. »
