Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009, Golden Circle Tour around Reykjavik,Iceland:
Afternoon: Gullfoss Waterfall, Geothermal Power Plant, and Perlan Dome

After lunch at the hotel located at Geyser we continued on to our next stop, Gullfoss waterfall, which turned out to be just a hop, skip, and jump away. The Gullfoss waterfall is still located in the rift zone area crossing Iceland and I would guess it was formed when the cracking of the crust produced the deep fissures that determined the course of the river. Whatever the reason, the waterfall is magnificent and has an absolutely astonishing amount of water, up in the same league as the lower falls of the Yellowstone River or maybe the American side of Niagara Falls.

After being let off the bus at the upper parking lot, we walked up a short trail to see the upper starge of the waterfall from above. The upper falls consist of a curiously uniform ledge of rock running completely across the riverbed and creating a broad but shallow fall of water, say about 120 feet across and 10 feet deep.

In contrast, the water falling over the ledge at the lower falls descends at least 100 feet or so to crash in a huge spray of foam. One curious thing about the lower falls is that they are set at a really odd angle to the upper falls. Most sets of multiple falls kind of run in the same direction, at least in my experience, but the two stages of the Gullfoss waterfall were at about a 90 degree angle to each other, which I found very unusual.

By that time it was mid afternoon and the sun was already descending at our backs. The spray that drifted back up out of the gorge of the lower falls created an absolutely beautiful, irridescent rainbow that shimmered in the air and seemed to plunge right into the gorge. Wow.

Then it was back into the bus for the 1-hour drive back to Reykjavik past lots of horses and small villages. We interrupted the scenic drive to stop briefly at the Helgir(sp?) geothermal power plant.

Iceland is apparently a leader in deveoping geothermal energy and quite proud of this "green" energy resource. Iceland's development of geothermal energy is a natural outgrowth of having abundant "hot spots" where the temperature 2-3 kilometers deep is already over 400 degrees Celsius, which is quite hot enough to produce steam to spin turbines to generate electric power. Unnur, our guide, told us about a bore hole in northern Iceland that had in fact hit molten rock at only two kilometers down, showing how thin the crust is at many points around the island. In any case, the plant near Reykjavik produces 250 megawatts of electricity and a lot of hot water for the central heating of homes and public buildings in the city as a byproduct.

Our final stop of the day as the Perlan, a pretty dome on the crest of a hill in a public park near the older downtown area of Reykjavik. We climbed up to the observation tower surrounding the dome to get a true 360-degree panoramic view of Reykjavik and environs. Off to one side we could even see the superstructure of the Jewel sandwiched between a couple of low buildings. The Perlan has a museum of Icelandic history that looked very interesting, but that would have taken me hours rather than the 20 minutes or so we had available, so I had to forgo that.

In the end we just took our pictures, climbed back down the stairs and jumped back on the bus for the 10-minute drive back through the old section of the city to the ship. The old section of the city did have some interesting houses with corrugated roofing, but the bus driver could not take the bus into the heart of the old section due to the maze of narrow, one-way streets. Also, the ship was due to leave at 6:00 p.m. so we really were running out of time. Lois did some shopping at the tourist center right beside the ship while I used the free Internet terminals to check my email account and send a "we are here" message back home to our family and friends.

Back on board, we dropped our stuff off in our cabin and all met in the Azure dining room for dinner. The evening show was a hypnotist, so Monika decided to spend the evening backing up pictures while I just read a bit to relax before we turned in for the night.