Because it has the purest air and water and the best hot springs in the world. Or because Iceland is a mysterious and unpredictable country: compared to other Nordic countries, Iceland seems to be very primitive, and people are very close to nature. But in some areas they are very avant-garde and advanced, such as Icelandic music. bjork can only be said to be the most famous musician in Iceland, compared to Iceland's extremely high standard of musicians and groups, she can not even be called the best! Icelanders may seem very silent and wooden, but their celebrations can go on for at least a day and a night, and everyone has their own specialty, music, dance, juggling, poetry. Or, if you're tired of traveling anywhere on Earth you can choose Iceland: as the most lunar-like terrain on our planet, the center of Iceland is where Armstrong, the first man on the moon, trained.
To Iceland you can usually fly to Reykjavik via Frankfurt via Icelandic Air, as there are more flights to Frankfurt and the possibility of discounts. Some airlines fly from London to New York with a layover and stopover in Iceland, an arrangement more suitable for business guests.
Arriving in Reykjavík, a traveler's first stop is usually the blue lagoon, twenty kilometers from the airport, a sapphire-like hot spring ringed by black volcanic rock and surrounded by a white clay floor. Because the water and the soil around the pool are rich in rare minerals, this westernmost hot spring on earth is not only as beautiful as a fairyland, but is also regarded as a sacred spring that restores youth and maintains beauty.
Reykjavik may be the capital, but it looks more like a small town. Due to the cold climate most of the year, there are far fewer cafes here than in other European countries. Icelanders see their homes as the best place for entertainment and rest, so it's wiser to stay in a good hotel in Iceland. Recommended is icelandica, an old European castle-style building nestled in the 101 district of the city center. The interior of the house features lots of hardwood and bay windows, decorated with stained glass and paintings, and costs about 140-200 euros per night. (The average Icelandic hostel costs 80-90 euros). Reading a book by the fire in icelandica's living room while sipping coffee with liqueur and chatting with other travelers will give you a glimpse into the laid-back daily life of a true Icelander.
Closer to Reykjavík, the spa town is a worthwhile destination, with a variety of plants, trees and buildings that are like a recreation of a Nordic fairy tale.
There are a lot of senior travelers to Iceland do not necessarily go to the famous "Golden Circle Tour", but skaftafell National Park is a must-visit place. Close to the national park skeidararsandur, is one of the largest plains in Iceland, an area of nearly one thousand square kilometers, is the vatnajkull glacier snow water alluvial out of the vast plains. This sweeping black plain, with a heavenly silver-white crystalline glacier on one side near the mountains, and bubbling geothermal geysers on the other, gives the impression of being at the end of the world.
Iceland is famous for its wool because of its cold climate and low pollution. Necklaces with old Norse characters are also a special souvenir worth bringing back.
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While the financial crisis has left Iceland almost bankrupt, it is strange that an authoritative magazine has commented that Iceland is "the happiest country in the world", which is indeed the case. Iceland is a country of high welfare, high benefits and high taxes. Icelanders have little difference between rich and poor, and the crime rate is almost zero. He has the 4th highest GMP in the world, well ahead of the US and UK. They treat people quite sincerely and are warm and generous. When we are guests in the local people, their hospitality is no less than the enthusiasm of our northeastern people to persuade the wine, if you hold the concept of eating western food in China to eat, I'm afraid it will support a good or bad. Icelandic people due to environmental pollution and social competitiveness is relatively small, usually very long life, Icelandic women are the world's longest-living women, the average age of 80 years old. The average age of Icelandic women is 80, and the retirement age for Icelanders is 70 for men and 65 for women. That's why we can see gray-haired old men racing on the streets, I guess.
Iceland travel
Flying: because Iceland and the other Nordic countries reached an agreement, Icelandic airlines aircraft is responsible for by the outside of the country to pick up and drop passengers into the country, that is, in addition to Icelandic Airlines, other countries of the aircraft shall not fly down to Iceland mainland. Therefore, people want to travel to Iceland, can only be in the United Kingdom, France and the Nordic countries and Iceland and other countries with flights to connect. For example, Beijing - Copenhagen - Reykjavik, 9 hours + 1.5 hours, the price is about twelve thousand yuan.
Prices: Because of geography, Iceland's prices are the most expensive among the Nordic countries. The French tourists we met locally found the spending ridiculously high. The Icelandic currency is in Icelandic krone, and generally 1000 Icelandic krone translates to about 100-110 RMB.
Weather: Iceland, because of its proximity to the North Pole, usually has 10 hours of daylight in the summer, with temperatures around 15 degrees, which is pleasantly cool. It is advisable to wear clothing such as jackets in case of light rain or cloudy days. Iceland has long, snowy and windy winters and is generally less visited by tourists. But for those who love the Northern Lights, Iceland in winter is the place to be.
Shopping: Icelandic airports offer a wide range of perfumes and cosmetics, which are at least one-third cheaper than at home, and some brands are not available domestically, so it is recommended to buy more. Icelandic souvenirs are usually very expensive, you can selectively choose a few, it is recommended to buy a well-made key chain, with Icelandic birds and polar bears and other patterns. Iceland is famous for its wool in the Nordic countries, so you can buy sweaters made of cashmere wool, but they are very expensive compared to those in Iceland and there are fewer styles. The main industry in Iceland is fishing, so you can buy fish skin products such as wallets, purses, hats, gloves, etc. There are many different kinds of fish skins. There are many different kinds of fish skin, and your friends have never seen a wallet made of tilapia skin. If you have the means, you can buy the aforementioned Puppin specimens, Icelandic wood carvings and chic astrological pendants.
Tourist Season
The best time to visit is June-September and January-March, with the season starting at the beginning of June, but bus tours to some of the highlands don't start until July. After mid-August Iceland becomes less touristy and hotels, inns and bus routes close. By September, all of Iceland seems to be hibernating, except for Reykjavik, where ice skating, ice fishing, snowmobiling and cross-country hunting trips are among the exciting activities that can be arranged between January and March.
How to get there
By plane: International: Keflavik Airport (about 55 kilometers from the city), with KLM and SAS Scandinavian Airlines flying to the major Nordic capitals. From Beijing, however, you will need to connect to a third destination in Northern Europe.
Gastronomy
Traditionally, Icelanders have lacked the ingredients and therefore the imagination for good food, but there are always cafes and restaurants that offer a variety of flavors. One food, called Hákarl, is rotting shark meat that has been buried in the sand for three to six months so that it completely disintegrates, and the stench can be off-putting to foreign visitors. Icelanders often like to clean and air-dry haddock, turning it into dried strips and serving it with cream as a snack, and Skyr, an Icelandic specialty, is a tasty mixture of skim milk and yeast, similar to yogurt.
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Iceland, for most of us, is a faraway land. In many people's imagination, this country should be like her name, an island covered in ice and white. I was fortunate to visit this country in the fall of 2006, the so-called hundred heard as much as seen, Iceland is not only ice and snow, there are a lot of gentle, rugged, magnificent, strange, weird, unreal landscape let me this once traveled far and wide also marveled at the people.
We stayed in Iceland for three days, arriving in the afternoon of the first day and leaving at noon on the third day, which was almost two days. We mainly visited the Blue lagoon, The golden circle and some buildings and streets in the city. The main scenic spots are introduced as follows:
The golden circle: is the essence of Icelandic tourism, just like the nature of our day trip to the West Lake here. It consists of three major and three minor attractions, which are scattered like pearls on a circular country road in Iceland, which is called the Golden Circle.
The three main attractions are:
The Old Parliament Site (Fracture Zone): the so-called Old Parliament Site is mainly a place of natural beauty. This site is the place where the Asia-Europe block and the America block break apart. According to Wegener's theory of continental block drift, these two blocks are still continuing to separate outward at a rate of 2 centimeters per year, and perhaps in a few tens of thousands of years Iceland will be split into two Iceland. The rocks on both sides of the fracture zone are like two great walls of black stone, stretching for several kilometers. Standing on the mountain looking down at the mountain, is the beautiful Parliament Lake, colorful autumn colors.
Because Icelanders hundreds of years ago, the annual parliamentary meetings, members of parliament from all over the island to bring a tent to the meeting, after the meeting, the tent a demolition, nothing left. This is also the place where the president of Iceland declared independence in 1944. The president stood on the hillside and yelled to the people down the hill that Iceland is independent and the people of Iceland have risen up. Then the people at the bottom of the hill danced happily, and the world gained another country. An Icelandic flag now flies where the president once stood, and underneath it is a monument so small that it is almost invisible buried in the grass. It is on the World Heritage List.
Geyser: Geyser's English name is based on the name of the geyser here, but perhaps because of the burden of fame, this used to be the world's second, the height of the eruption of up to 50 meters of natural fountains have not erupted, not far from her side, there is another small geyser is still every 3 or 5 minutes, the height of the eruption of about 20 meters, so people feel that the trip is not worth it. The city is a great place to visit.
Golden Falls: is one of Europe's famous waterfalls, divided into two levels, the upper drop 11 meters, the lower drop 21 meters, more than 100 meters wide. I can not see the waterfall is the color of gold, turbulent river water seems to be a little grayish-white, like the color of lime water. Pouring down the waterfall splash water droplets filled the sky, in the sunlight to form a road rainbow, the scenery is quite spectacular and colorful. A monument was erected next to the waterfall in honor of a civilian woman. In the 1930s, the local government took a liking to this waterfall and was going to sell the resources here to foreign investors to build a hydroelectric power plant here. The incident alarmed a woman living nearby, who insisted that this would destroy the natural landscape and insisted on fighting the government in a lawsuit, which was won, leaving this spectacular waterfall for future generations.
Three small attractions are:
The Little Pony Falls: the drop and width are smaller than the Golden Falls, but the water is blue, like a silky silk shivering.
Crater: a large round pit that holds water.
Hot Springs Town Eden: Taking advantage of the rich geothermal resources, local people use greenhouses to grow vegetables and fruits.
Besides these travel agency-recommended attractions, the scenery on the road is also worth seeing. Volcanic lava on both sides of the highway, blue lakes, grasses and mosses with tenacious vitality, and steam from the unique local geothermal heat rising to the sky and connecting with the clouds. As well as distant glaciers, mountains, ever-changing scenery from time to time will make you stop to take pictures, we stopped 3 times on the road just to see the scenery, resulting in the day trip ended 2 hours later than scheduled.
Blue Lake: a man-made lake, is the world's largest open-air hot springs. The spa center developed in 1976 after workers injected seawater into the surrounding low-lying volcanic land to build a power plant, but mistakenly dissolved the minerals on the surface of the rock formations, and experts discovered that these mineral springs helped treat skin ailments. As the saying goes, if you've never been to the Blue Lagoon, you've never been to Iceland.
The pale blue waters of the lagoon are shrouded in mist, making it seem like a fairyland. The best way to enter the wonderland is to jump into the hot springs and blend yourself with the beautiful scenery. The white mud at the bottom of the Blue Lagoon is the best natural face mask, which makes your skin feel smooth after using it; after taking a hot spring bath, you feel refreshed and all your worries dissipate.
Sightseeing in the city: Presidential Palace, the site of the U.S.-Soviet 1986 Summit, City Hall, Prime Minister's Office, Parliament Building, Cathedral, Pearl Building (overlooking the panoramic view of Reykjavík), the general style of the architecture is similar to that of other cities in Northern Europe. Reykjavik is just two streets, the whole stroll does not need an hour. Because of the small number of people and friendliness, all kinds of animals live happily. We stayed for a long time by the lake in front of the city hall (Lake Tejonen), feeding the swans and seagulls, and experienced the harmony between human and animals.
Other tours: Because this is a group tour, so I did not have the opportunity to experience other tours, from the introduction of local Icelandic tourists, Iceland in general, there are also the following tours: horseback riding tours, Northern Lights tours, glacier tours, winter (skiing) tours, yacht harbor tours (including whale-watching) from the introduction of the pictures are worth a visit. Chinese self-help travel travelogues only found one online: .tw/spot/diary_country.asp?cgrfnbr=69.
Visa: Iceland belongs to the Schengen countries, as long as there is a Schengen visa can enter. Therefore, if you have a visa for the Scandinavian or Western European countries, you don't need to get a new visa.
Transportation: Iceland does not have direct flights to China, usually from London, Frankfurt, Copenhagen, it is said that because of more Chinese tourists now, is negotiating direct flights from China to Iceland. We flew into Iceland from Helsinki, Finland, and left Iceland in Copenhagen, Denmark, taking about 3 hours each way.
Time difference: The time difference between Iceland and China is 8 hours.
Travel guide with the group: domestic travel agencies are generally arranged Nordic travel piggyback Iceland, generally arranged for one or two days, it is recommended to go to the Blue Lagoon and the Golden Circle. The Blue Lagoon is usually a self-funded program, the cost of soaking in a hot spring is about RMB 150 yuan, it is best to bring their own swimsuit.
Shopping: basically everything in the area is imported, and the local specialty is wool products, which have a high level of consumption, so don't buy them if you can. Our guide did not take us to the shopping point, a lot of small souvenirs are made in china, do not buy.
Other notes: local sockets are round holes, should be prepared to convert the plug; local hotels only supply direct drinking water, do not supply boiled water, such as the need to make tea need to prepare their own electric kettle.
Snail in the northwest corner of Europe's Iceland, never to the outside world to pander to, in this land, as if the great hidden in the world. The entire Iceland only 300,000 people, Icelanders do not have the pressure of the GDP, there is no overtime, life is quiet and calm. Iceland's peak tourist season is generally June, July and August, September in Iceland we see in tourist attractions are speaking Chinese compatriots, this year there have been 3,000 Chinese people to Iceland to travel, more than double that of last year, and this growth trend will continue for several years. I hope that the arrival of large numbers of Chinese will not break the tranquility and harmony.