The Only Way To See Iceland
In May, we boarded the Cruise and Maritime vessel Marco Polo for an 11-day Icelandic adventure. After a prompt departure we made stately progress through the lock and entered the Bristol Channel, choosing to miss dinner to witness the familiar landmarks of Penarth, seen from the top deck rather than from dry land.
The Marco Polo is a classic ship built by the Russians as an ice breaker in 1965, and it looks like what you’d expect a ship to look like, rather than a floating multi-storey hotel. Being small and perfectly formed, it does not have the unadulterated luxury and decadence of its flashy cousins, but it does have tremendous double-hulled strength and great stability on the open sea. It also has wonderful, friendly staff who can’t do enough for you, good food, pleasant communal areas, serviceable cabins and the best live entertainment that we have experienced to date.
After a night and two days at sea, we made landfall at the isolated Faroe Islands early on Saturday morning and were straight into shore excursions, visiting a local wood carver at 8:30! Our excellent guide gave us an insight into life in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and we learned that seventeen of the nineteen islands are inhabited, but one has only two residents. After a visit to the fishing port of Kvivik, it was back to the boat for a lunchtime departure and overnight crossing to Seydisfjordur for our first taste of Iceland. Marco Polo was severely tested by rough seas but proved equal to the task, ironing out the rolling swell.
Seydisfjordur, at the end of a long V-shaped fjord on the south-east coast, was picture-perfect, with cloudless sunny skies, ice capped mountains and pretty dwellings in pastel colours, the only sting in the tail being a really strong wind which almost blew you over. It was Sunday and very quiet, and we were happy to forego the excursions and wander around this delightful settlement, which enjoys the reputation of being the loveliest village in eastern Iceland.
A further overnight of rock and roll brought us to Husavik on the north-eastern coast, another coastal town doing a balancing act between commerce and tourism. After another early start, our all day excursion took in the magnificent Godafoss waterfall (where it snowed briefly!) which could give Niagara a run for its money; volcanic pseudo craters at Lake Myvatn where we enjoyed an outstanding lunch of local produce, including Icelandic lamb and trout; weird and wonderful lava rock sculptures at Dimmuborgir and at the Namafjall Geothermal Area we experienced steaming fumeroles and amazing boiling mud pots coloured blue from the basalt with red and yellow sulphur steaks, set in hostile baked earth, which is completely sterile and supports no forms of life. This was Iceland at its best.
As we re-joined the ship to continue our westbound circumnavigation of Iceland, we received the unwelcome news that the continuing bad weather meant that the captain had reluctantly abandoned our next port of call at Isafjordur. We later learned that Iceland had been experiencing its worst May weather for many a year, with temperatures rarely struggling beyond six degrees centigrade, strong winds and big rough seas which rendered mooring up on the north-western coast out of the question.
Instead, we had an unexpected additional sea day as we headed west and south to the capital Reykyavik, where we arrived in the early evening of Tuesday to be greeted by mist and rain. We forsook the offer of a free shuttle service to explore the downtown area and thoroughly enjoyed an excellent performance by the Show Team instead.
The next day dawned bright and clear and was ideal for an excursion around the Golden Circle, taking in the town of Hveragerdi, which straddles the American and Eurasian tectonic plates and experienced severe damage when hot springs caused a major earthquake in 2008. Next, we went to the geothermal area at Haukadular which boasts the thermal geysers Geysir, which has given up spouting and Strokkur, which can be depended upon to produce a spout of water up to six metres in the air every five minutes or so. After seeing this spectacle several times in the cool easterly breeze, we retired to the nearby restaurant for another Icelandic meal. After lunch, it was the splendid Gulfoss waterfall, followed by a walk through the Thingvellir National Park, where the footpath leads you down a steep sided ravine created by the clashing of the two tectonic plates. It was like something out of Game of Thrones and made you feel very humble. On the outward and return journeys, we had a flavour of Reykjavík, which is essentially a modern city with some interesting buildings and a pleasant downtown area. For us, the essence of Iceland is in the rugged and fascinating interior and the coastal settlements which cling on to their sea-based existence.
Then it was goodbye to Iceland and looking back, although we were regularly regaled with tales of the disastrous May weather, all our shore excursions were mostly dry with the two really important full day trips having a great deal of sunshine, so we were lucky on land but had to batten down the hatches when at sea. Luckily, the sea conditions were much kinder for our two sea days before arriving at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour, where we received a warm and friendly Irish greeting and visited the glorious Blarney Castle after a quick coach tour of Cork. Rejecting the half hour queue to kiss the Blarney Stone, we wandered through the beautiful gardens where we found ourselves overdressed in a positively balmy seventeen degrees centigrade, having been used to chilly Iceland during the previous week. Our adventure was rounded off in Christie’s Bar for a complimentary Irish coffee before a lunchtime departure to reach sleepy Cardiff at six o’clock on Sunday morning. After a short journey back to Penarth, we found ourselves back home, somewhat lost after a packed eleven days away and having to make our own lunch!
In conclusion, we had a splendid trip on a ship full of character and people who genuinely want you to have a good time, and we visited some unique places that have made an indelible impression and given us lifelong memories. Best of all, it only took us ten minutes to get to the ship.