Trip report: Why you should sail to Iceland on the Ambassador Ambition.
Iceland – an island that is often a stop on a tourist itinerary but rarely a nearly circular walkway, offering amazing fjords, lunar landscapes, and the chance to spot whales every day. day.
When it comes to fjords, people often think of Norway. But Iceland also has plenty. They are dramatic but in a very different way. These are the first modest flat giant hills with lower vegetation below, a gray veil above. Also then you realize how tall they are, how steep they are – and they can’t continue. Roads meander along the water’s edge but there are few passes, tunnels, or trails through the mountains.
The countryside is often a lunar landscape of gray and slate hills interspersed with volcanic ruins, waterfalls, and bubbling geothermal springs. There are many volcanoes – just before we arrived, Mount Fagradalsfjall, half an hour southwest of Reykjavik, erupted.
And then there’s the wildlife. Ambassador Cruise Line trips feature experts from the UK whale conservation organization Orca. Also who organize deck observation parties and advise you on the best places to observe.
The Boat
Ambition is the UK Ambassador Cruise Line’s second ship, sailing from ports like Liverpool, Newcastle and Belfast, particularly on cruises like this Icelandic Land of Ice & Fire adventure.
A classic ship that has undergone a massive makeover with rich colors, there are two main restaurants, plus a Borough Market buffet, with everything from grilled turkey to fresh shrimp and curries.
The Palladium Theater offers nightly entertainment that includes jokes, musicals (a shortened version of My Fair Lady), rock songs, dance, and comedy (Liverpool veteran Pauline Daniels). There are daytime talks about showbiz by opera director Jamie Hayes, including The Beatles and the history of musicals.
Whale
The Ambassador’s partnership with Orca allows Abbi and Becci to professionally but happily observe the deck daily, binoculars always at the ready, with the ever-changing companions of guests – for 11 days, they stay logged in more 50 hours. Whale watching takes patience, but their diaries record 171 sea creatures from 10 species:
six types of whales (pilots, sperm whales, fins, humpbacks, small and large noses), three types of dolphins, and a handful of dolphins.
Ports
Seydisfjordur
In the northeast corner, a rare non-geothermal spot. The town of 700 lies at the end of a long fjord of the same name. The mountains on either side were filled with white cotton grass and boulders and fields of green-white lupine, a plant that thrives in poor conditions and was introduced to stabilize the thin topsoil – and is now invading the country.
A town of brightly painted wooden buildings, mostly cafes, and shops selling thick sweaters at intimidating prices, centered on Lonio, the head of a lake-like fjord. Búdareyrarfoss waterfall cascades down a cliff in stages, and a slightly steep path takes visitors to the main falls.
I went for a walk in the sun in the Skalanes nature reserve. A giant wheeled bus makes the 45-minute winding journey along the fjord’s edge – the need for wheels is seen as the road that quickly turns to land with three rocky streams towards the fjord.
From the little red visitor center, walk a kilometer past lupines, dived by arctic terns, beautiful with blackheads and swallowtails but fiercely protective of their territory. At the turn of a bend, we faced a strong sea cliff. It is home to hundreds of kittens and gull-like seals, but nearby is a school of puffer fish. Magnificent with their large orange beaks, they take off, and with their rounded bodies they seem to fall before their strange little wings.
Akureyri
The small town over 40 miles Eyjafjördur has a number of narrow streets of shops. I climb the hill to the 1940s modernist church, which sits atop 100 grand steps, then I go further, to the Botanical Gardens, a free haven of trees, lawns, and – I’m on time – a great collection of hard-working people. giant Himalayan blue poppy to grow at home.
If you’re in Iceland, you can’t help but try one of the geothermal pools, and my excursion takes me through fields of lava rock, created by heat and water pushing through tiny cracks. In the fishing town of Húsavík are GeoSea, outdoor swimming pools by the sea that range from pleasantly warm to something you can almost boil and boil. It was so relaxing to soak up and look out to sea, even though I didn’t see any whales. We also stopped at one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Iceland, Godafoss, a wide and frenetic waterfall on the Skjálfandafljót River.
Isafjordur
Nestled in the Westfjords, this is the capital of the 3,000 inhabitants of Iceland’s most remote region. Set on a curved headland with sea in almost every direction, it lies within a small fjord, Skutulsfjördur, beyond the larger, sea-like fjord, Skutulsfjördur, with its towering snow-capped mountains.
There are bars, cafes, several shops, even a supermarket, and signposted passages through the streets and down the lower slopes of the mountain’s roller coaster-like curve. mountain. I sailed to Vigur Island, deeper in the main bay. Here, on a family farm (with a cafe and souvenir shop), I saw the oldest windmill in Iceland, like a garden with sails, and a sailing boat oldest in Iceland, the one recorded as old 200 years ago.
But it’s a place for birds. First, we see the eider duck; The farm is the main producer of cotton blankets. Then the puffins, on the rocks and dancing in the ocean – about 100,000, the largest colony in the country. There are beautiful shiny, rare black guillotines with white wing streaks and red legs. Then the arctic terns, hundreds in the air; we were given flags and advised to keep them high nearby to stay away. Before you go, coffee and rhubarb pie – rhubarb grows well here, thanks in part to guillotines that nest (and fertilize) under the foliage. Then we saw a humpback whale returning from the boat.
Reykjavik
Iceland’s capital and a place to create style alongside quaint wooden buildings. The Harpa, an angled glass concert hall, is the focal point of the waterfront. It was very walkable and I walked up the hill through the narrow shopping streets, all the jumpers and cuddly penguins, to the massive concrete Hallgrimskirkja, the largest church in Iceland, only from 1986, not decorated inside even though the giant organ is a work of art. It was certainly not a small church; I found it hidden behind the old parliament building near Harpa. I continued and found the old port where the warehouses were more and more shops and restaurants. The Maritime Museum has a few historic ships moored outside.
A tour allows you to see the smokestacks of the volcano, Mount Fagradalsfjall, a major attraction after three eruptions in two years. We passed a sci-fi landscape, lava fields, black sand beaches, man-made hills, and even a police presence and a parking lot that is now closed to visitors visiting the volcano, a three-mile walk from the scene.
Our destination, Krýsuvík, the passages through fuming craters and boiling springs surrounded by multicolored hills, is fascinating but somewhat overwhelming 슬롯게임 사이트.