 Gullfoss
This is a grand epic landscape of mountains and deep fjords, black volcanic sands and rugged lava fields, majestic waterfalls and rich earth colours, rock formations so bizarre that they are explained away in legends and local folklore as trolls and giants with lives of their own. But even on the rim of the Artic Circle there are tender sides to nature’s character, in idyllic grassy valleys and plains, colourful coastal towns and villages, peaceful farmsteads and the romantic hues of the midnight sun. Besides a huge variety of native and migrant birds, Iceland’s fauna includes reindeer and foxes on land and whales and seals at sea.
By far the youngest country in Europe from geological perspective, Iceland is literally split down the middle on tectonic plates, one moving towards Europe, the other towards North America, at a centimetre or two a year. An apt setting for the ocean outpost where Vikings would bring their ancient tongue which is still spoken hardly changed today. Iceland was also a stepping-stone to the New World, the starting place for the Viking settlement of Greenland and birthplace of Leif the Lucky, who in the year 1000 became the first European to set foot in North America.
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