Saturday, September 10, 2016

Iceland/Island



  According to my counting, we drove around or skirted part of 23 fjords.  While we don't have photographic evidence of each one, we can attest, and rightly show with a few pictures, that they all are stunning.  The second picture is the first small one we saw, soon after crossing Breidjafjordjur on a three-hour ferry ride.  That seemed more like open ocean than a fjord, but we saw our first puffins so we didn't haggle over definitions. 
  The bottom picture is of an Alcoa factory in the Eastfjords.  We read a book before going about the efforts in the late 90's and into this century to open up Iceland to smelters with promises of guaranteed cheap, renewable energy.  Not as many dams were approved as needed, some areas actually got protected status, so not as many factories were established.  As bad as an economy based on tourism is, I think it beats one based on mining, damming rivers and smelting aluminum.
  The picture above that is Seydjisfjordjur, both the town and fjord.  We went up to a sculpture someone made part way up the mountain that produced cool echoes.  I felt it necessary to play banjo inside and take a little hike up the mountain above.

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