Tongfamily Website

Iceland Discoveries. We were travelling last month and there just wasn’t time to blog it all. Needlesstosay, got lots of helpful tips. First destination was Iceland.

A strange place you might say and I actually don’t know many folks who have been there. It is about 2 1/2 hours from London so it isn’t super far. If you’ve got the dough the way to get there is Icelandair. They have nonstop flights from San Francisco and Minneapolis and New York directly there. We took a layover in Heathrow and it was a little painful. Flight got in at 6AM and the flight to Iceland was 130 PM. Our wonderful friends took us into Rejkavik for a week and here are the sites and sounds we thought were so cool:

Anyway, why go there, in a word, its the landscape. Iceland is in the middle of the Mid-Atlantic rift, so it growing an inch a year. You get to stand right on the middle of the fault.

Geysir is one of the big sites. It is why everyother Geyser is called a Geyser. Goes up every 15 minutes and is way smelly but very cool.

Gullfoss is the really big waterfall, so that and Geysir are the two big sites.

In addition, the kids loved some other things…

Pylsur. Wikipedia is never wrong (;), so these are indeed the best hot dogs in the world. Actually, we tried them and I have to say, I can’t eat a US hot dog anymore. Unlike their US cousins, an Icelandic hot dog isn’t so salty. They also have this stuff that looks a lot like thousand island dressing they put on it. The only place to get is is called the “Best in Town” or B?jarins Beztu Pylsur. They are cheap at about US$2 each, so grab a bunch.

Reykjavik Zoo. This is actually a pretty fun place. You get to see the real Iceland Pony too. Reykjavik by the way is great. It has about 200K people or 2/3 of the population and you can get around very easily. Although you really do need a car. Just rent it from Hertz when you land. Make sure you rent by the way at the Keflavik airport not the Reykjavik airport (this is the domestic airport).

In terms of where to stay, we were lucky to get a private apartment, but most folks think the Nordica hotel is the best and most luxurious there is.

Finally life wouldn’t be complete with a trip to the ?r?r Frakkar which means literally three trenchcoats or three Frenchman. Their speciality is native game. They for instance had Commorant, Puffin and Whale sashimi (I’m not kidding) on the menu the night we were there.

For a real treat, you can try the Icelandic lobster. They are really great if a little bit out of town at Vid fjorubordid that was really amazingly good. They are like big crayfish and this place only has a few entrees and then you get a pot of lobster. Check it out.

The Hornid. Yup, I just had to include this one, this is the the corner restaurant. Italian food in iceland. And yes, the link is to the restroom ratings site. Someone actually goes around looking at the bathrooms all around the world and rates them. Funny if it wasn’t so sad :) But like all of iceland, the Hornid is online, so you saw it hear first. This is a good casual place.