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10 Iceland Travel Tips for an Amazing Vacation
Read our 11 top tips for Iceland travel. Find out the best way to see Iceland, tips for exploring, & other info for travelers holidaying in Iceland.
Einar Steinn Valgarðsson
Certified travel blogger
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A writer for this site, integral in its shaping, as well as an avid traveler and a Reykjavik local, I have a fair knowledge of the country and traveling. Good in languages, have a BA in English. Other interests: Music, films, coffee houses, swimming, politics, health and humanitarian issues, folklore, anthropology, arts, poetry, culture, nature, hiking, history etc. I would be happy to direct you to good tours and recommend cool stuff. The opinions that I express on my blog are solely my own.
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Cool music, books and films in January – Things to check out.
Perhaps not as cool as this guy, but then again, what is? 1) The French Film Festival, with nine films from January 11 to January 24, hosted by Græna ljósið (The Green Light) and shown in Háskólabíó cinema. Of these I have already seen two excellent ones, L’Illusioniste by Sylvain Chomet and Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud. Other films shown at the festival are De Roille et D'os, Amour, Adieu Berthe, Un Poison Violent, Les Barons, La Famillie Wolberg and Nénette. The Green Light Page can be found here, though info in English is lacking as of this being w
Of Þorrablót, troll friendship and a starry night with Northern Lights
One thing to look forward to in January is the Þorrablót. This is a mid winter festival (traditionally the month of Thorri is the fourth winter month, from mid-January to mid-February) when many Icelanders get together to eat traditional food, what many other people consider simply disgusting food. Much of it is cured with lactic acid. We have Hrútspungar (soured rams testicles, boiled and cured in lactic acid), svið (boiled sheep heads, sometimes cured in lactic acid), hákarl (fermented shark), sviðasulta (sheep’s loins, made from svið and sometimes cured in lactic acid), hangikjöt (smoked
We'll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne
Picture by Iurie Belegurchi. For more of his awesome pictures, visit his page. Gleðilegan þrettánda, góðir hálsar! /Happy Thirtheenth, good throats! I do love how some Icelandic phrases make hardly any sense when translated directly, or none at all. For those that may not know the the Thirtheenth, Icelanders celebrate the 13th and last day of Christmas on January 6th and there's lots of fireworks, bonfires, dancing and fun stuff going on, similar to New Year’s Eve. This day was formerly held to be the birthday of Jesus, and the Armeninan Church indeed still holds it to be so. As with N
Einar went to the movies: Djúpið
Finally got around to see Baltasar Kormákur’s film Djúpið (‘The Deep’) the other day. This film is mainly inspired by events by the Westman Islands in 1984, when fisherman Guðlaugur Friðþórsson managed to safe his life as his boat Hellisey went down, by swimming a distance of about six kilometers to Heimaey island, with the sea temperature about 6 degrees Celsius. This was an astonishing and unprecedented feat. Guðlaugur was the sole survivor, four of his friends perished. Guðlaugur, though having previously been interviewed about the event and lent his support to a documentary
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