I’ve just returned from my Icelandic adventure. Well a few days visiting the main tourist attractions that this amazing country has to offer. My bucket list now has a big tick against it. I never had a bucket list before I became ill. Just some vague ideas on what I may want to do in the future. A question mark over my morbidity and a huge brush with mortality changed that.

One of the first things I did was to buy a brand new car after a lifetime of driving used cars. My first one cost me £15. The only way I kept it going was with a lot of fiddling with the plugs and points. Only those of a certain age will know what I am talking about.

Next on the list was Iceland. My husband doesn’t do the cold and my son was off to University so it was to be a girlie few days away.

I can’t really tell you why I wanted to do Iceland. It just seemed to have a number of experiences I wanted to have. The Blue Lagoon, the northern lights and geysers. And life is all about experiences.

So did it live up to my expectations. In many ways they were exceeded but only for two out of the above three.

The phrase ‘the camera never lies’ was never so wrong. Who hasn’t been seduced by the photography of the Blue Lagoon. The reality is a bit different. We essentially paid nearly £120 for the two of us to bathe in the waste water of a geothermal power plant. But it is still very pleasant. It is not crowded as access is only through pre-booking. The water is beautiful but one can only spend so long in a bath. After an hour we returned our crinkly bodies to the changing room. The Blue Lagoon is a must do. Just don’t believe all the hype. My only other advice would be to take some body lotion with you. They provide shower gel/shampoo/conditioner but not lotion and the water may be therapeutic but is very drying.
That evening we were booked on a trip to find the northern lights. It was cancelled due to the weather conditions. Some of our fellow travellers had been waiting days but we got rebooked for the following day and were off. Four hours on a coach and an hour standing in the cold to see a few green smudges in the sky. ‘Underwhelmed’ was how one woman described it. But if you had a camera, not a ‘selfie’ smartphone, you would have experienced an amazing display. What the camera captures is not what is seen by the naked eye. But we were lucky to see the lights even if they were fairly diluted.

Our next excursion was a Reykjavik sightseeing tour. This was excellent. It is easy to forget the history of Iceland. Being of a certain age I can remember the ‘Cod Wars’ between Iceland and the UK and the Reykjavík Summit between Reagan and Gorbachev. More recently the 2008 financial meltdown and the volcanic eruption in 2010 which floored air travel for a number of days. What is really impressive is how Iceland has bounced back. A lot of this bounce is due to increased tourism which brings its own challenges. Icelanders are concerned that tourism may destroy their heritage. It has also made life very expensive. Most Icelanders don’t go out to eat and drink. And what happens if the love affair with Iceland diminishes.

The Hallgrimskirkja church is the star of Reykjavik. It took 40 years to complete, is one of the tallest buildings in Iceland and houses a 25 ton organ. It is breathtaking.

But the highlight of our adventure was The Golden Circle which takes in Pingvellir National Park, the Gullfoss waterfall and the geothermal area of Haukadaur, home of the active Strokkur geyser.

Iceland is beautiful in a rather unconventional way. Every which way you look are lava fields. After a few days you can identify a 1,000 year old field, one that has celebrated its 3,000th birthday and the more ‘normal’ landscape of an elderly 50,000 year old field. They make Iceland unique.
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​​My bestest experience was the Strokkur geyser. What the camera doesn’t capture is the sheer power of the 100 ft ‘spout’. You only have to wait 4-5 minutes to feel its force.

All to soon we were going home. We both loved Iceland. My daughter would like to live there. But my purse was very relieved. And I will go back . There is still glacier hiking and whale and puffin watching to experience.