We made our Iceland trip with TravelQuest, the travel agency used by Sky and Telescope magazine for its tours. We found TravelQuest to be a great business to deal with, especially for astronomy related tours. The tour ran from September 16th to 23rd 2004. Although in large part dedicated to aurora viewing, it was as least as much dedicated to touring the scenically and geologically spectacular country of Iceland. The tour came off smoothly and we enjoyed it immensely. Although I hope you check out the tour pictures from Iceland, if you are just interested in the aurora pictures, you can go directly to the Aurora Page.
Our flight from the US originated in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, one of several possibilities for this tour. We chose Minneapolis/Saint Paul since Barb has relatives there. This allowed us to arrive there a day early and visit with them. The Icelandair flight left Minneapolis/Saint Paul in the evening and arrived at Keflavik international airport in Iceland just before 6:30 AM. There we boarded our tour bus (a 4 wheel drive model to deal with some of the rougher roads) along with our tour guide, Martina, and our driver, Grimmur. The first stop was the popular Icelandic attraction, the Blue Lagoon. There we suited up for a soak/swim in the mineral rich geothermal pool. After a breakfast at the Blue Lagoon it was back on the bus for the quick trip to Reykjavik. There we checked into the hotel Nordica. The panorama below is the view from the top floor looking east toward the harbor. It was raining on and off the day we arrived - the panorama was taken the next morning after it had cleared.
Photo by Barb Johnson, panorama by Bill McLaughlin
Our next activity, after about two hours of rest at the Nordica, was a bus tour of Reykjavik. The weather was generally pretty windy and rainy during this trip around the city - not at all uncommon weather. It is fair to say that the weather in Iceland changes more rapidly than anywhere I have been and the actual weather bears only passing resemblance to the forecast. Below are photos from some of the stops on the city tour. As elsewhere on these pages, you can click on the photos for larger versions with details.
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