A Euro trip 2017 playlist

What a fantastic trip. Here's some of the music we compiled in 2017: Team Chapman Euro Trip Playlist 2017. 

The artists are from Iceland (Tillbury, Mono Town, Obja Rasta, Júniús Mayvent, Vök, Lay Low, Hymnalaya, Snorri Helgason, Samaris, Myrra Rós), Norway (Jonas Alaska), U.K. (Alt-J, Nick Mulvey), Denmark (Choir of Young Believers, Agnes Obel), France (Jain), Germany (Milky Chance), Sweden (Justin Tebbutt).

If you liked these, take a listen to last year's playlist for Team Chapman Travels 2016. 

Delicious

Sketches

On the left, the bakehouse we stayed at in Klimmen, near Maastricht.

During our hike up Mosfell.

In Reykjavik.

The stunning view from around where we stayed in Reykholt.

Sterkar Djúpur

Just like last time, the boys purchased lots of candy. Here is our first post vacation review

Batter up - Sterkar Djúpur.

Note the flame imagery on the package. The rules were that each person had to choose three candies and eat them all at once.

Judge 1 - Did not like consistency or flavour. Where was the heat? 2/10

Judge 2 - Disgusting 0.5/10

Judge 3 - Nasty 2/10

Judge 4 - Confusing and salty 3/10

Hákarl and Friend

Melanie took this picture in the grocery store in Selfoss. Clearly hákarl is something that Icelanders eat enough of that it warrants this amount of stock on hand.  Hákarl's neighbour, hamsatólg, is sheep fat. 

Flying over Southern Greenland

Blue Lagoon

It didn't take long for us to pack up this morning. We made a few stops heading to the airport. The boys spent the last of their Kroner on candy at the Bonus in Selfoss.  

We made a quick stop at the Kerid crater and then we headed to the Blue Lagoon.

Snowy Sunrise

Secret Lagoon

The Secret Lagoon is actually not so secret. You book in advance and they cap the number of people that are allowed in. Compared to the notoriety of some other geothermal spas in Iceland, this one is certainly a hidden gem. It is considered to be the oldest geothermal pool in Iceland.

What makes this spot awesome is that these are natural hot springs. Water and steam  bubbles up from fissures beside the lagoon and flows into the pool area.  There is no concrete - just earthen banks and a gravel bottom.

The warm water holds 38-40 Celsius all year. Best of all was that it took all of 7 minutes to drive there from the house.

Sprint to the Finish

Instead of being responsible and packing up today, we did the following:

1. Went to Geysir.

2. Went to the wool cooperative at Þingborg.  By the way, that funny p thing is called a thorn.  So in Icelandic, it is pronounced thingborg. Þingborg was full of the handspun, naturally dyed wool Melanie had been hoping to find. 

3. Had lunch at the tomato greenhouse restaurant again in Reykholt.

4. Went on a challenging hike up a hill/mountain outside of Flúðir. In Icelndic,the slanted "d" character is called an eth. You pronounce it like the "th" in the word "the". The hill is called Miðfell and I think it might be a caldera. The hike took us up 160 metres to a perched lake.

5. Melanie and I went to the secret lagoon.  Ten minutes from the house - it warrants a separate blog post.

Outside of the wool cooperative

Melanie's wool.

Miðfell

Geysir

The Geysir area is close to the house, about 15 minutes up the road. It is a touristy spot, so we headed out early this morning to beat the tour buses.

There were only a half dozen other people there, so we had lots of time to enjoy the alien landscape.

A Blog Post for Benjamin

Caves are mysterious places. Yesterday we went into the deep Víðgelmir lava cave that was created about 1100 years ago. We got to see the location where evidence was found of a Viking outlaw having used the still-cooling cave as shelter.

Benjamin, when we entered the mouth of the cave, it was around freezing. When we got to the deepest point of the tour, around 800 metres in, we could have opened up our jackets. The cave was noticeably warmer. Hmmm.

As we got deeper, we were amazed at how big the cave was.

After the cave tour, we drove as far as we could toward the Langyökull glacier, until the road was rutted and the winds were too fierce to continue driving.

On the way back, we stopped to fill our water bottles with some delicious glacial water.

Smoked Brown Trout

Lightly brined, smoked using birch and field grass, served on top of rye bead.

Icelandic Brown Trout Hook Up

I had a great day on the river yesterday.  Two arctic char and one brown trout landed on the River Holaa.  The scenery was stunning and I had a great guide.  We were on the water at 9:30 and I fished hard the whole day.

This is one of my last casts of the day. I had a large weighted streamer on (green woolly bugger) and had a few hard strikes before the trout took my fly.  It weighed in at just over 1kg, which is a good sized trout.

Arctic Char Release