Day 1: Safe and sound in Iceland; keeping busy!!

The party arrived at Terminal 1 in Manchester Airport at 11 am.  The entire group was checked in, security checked and all boarded on the plane before 1145 am!  From there it was an easy breezy two hour flight, where the sun was shining brightly above the clouds……However; it was not so sunny when we landed!

With the same efficiency displayed at Manchester earlier, the group got through passport control and collected their luggage within 20 minutes of landing.  Don’t worry; all passports have been collected in again…

We met our usual guide, David Kelley and we were introduced to our bus driver Svanur.  The Icelandic wind whipped us onto the bus pretty quickly and we took our first journey to a little museum that has recently opened on the old American army base.  

From there we headed to the Perlan which is a revolving restaurant, built on top of six huge hot water tanks, with panoramic views of Reykjavik to boot.  Again, the Icelandic wind was letting the group know that standing in just t-shirts was not going to be enjoyable for long!

After this stop we drove to a pizza restaurant where silence descended as the pupils (and teachers!) tucked into a seemingly endless buffet of pizza and soda drinks.    Hotel Baron is in the middle of Reykjavik and to get one more activity into our day, we took the ‘Mr Dalton tour of town’, which involves seeing some of the fabulous architecture by Icelandic night.  This leisurely stroll is the best way to burn off the pizza and a great way to end a busy first day in this new land. 

Mr Nicholson has been given the night off from Northern Light hunting: too much cloud and urban light. 

AGJ

 

The tour bus which has the chassis of a 4x4 lorry with a bus body on top for taking in the rougher terrains we may encounter....

Checking out all the volcanic spots in Iceland.  Guess what, there are lots!!!