Since we wanted to get an early start for our first and only full day in the city and to make it to Edinburgh Castle in time for our timed entry, we had picked up some breakfast supplies at Sainsbury’s the evening before. Still on a kick of croissants, a remnant from our trip to Paris a few months prior, we had picked some up along with yogurt, and ate in our apartment.
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As a couple who enjoy the outdoors, historic spots and places (Lindsey in particular really loves castles), and interesting geology, Scotland has long been on our list of places to visit. We also both have ancestors from the country, which always piques our interest in checking out a place.
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*Guest post*: Our first 58 minute long documentary, ‘Mexico: Mayan Mystery and Marine Majesty’ is a slightly odd entrance into travel documentary making in that it was never originally intended to be a documentary when we set out. I’m going to be discussing some of the ‘making of’ here, so it is time for you to decide whether you go and watch it now, or whether you would prefer to read on and watch it later. Either way is fine with me – if you want to watch it now then please go ahead – I’ll just wait here for you.
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We had the good fortune to visit Notre-Dame de Paris about a week before the April 15, 2019 fire engulfed its roof. During our week-long trip in Paris, our apartment was basically right across the Seine from the cathedral and just a few minutes’ walk. We could hear the tolling of the bells that rang out at what appeared to be random intervals, and we walked by the cathedral multiple times a day.
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We both took French in school - Dustin took it in high school, and I took it in middle school - and neither of us were particularly good or successful at it. I have always said foreign language was my weakest subject in school and so I hopped from French in middle school to Latin for the four years of high school to two years of Italian in college (my political science degree required foreign language or else I would never have voluntarily taken more language courses!). That’s right, I hopped from language to language hoping to find one that would click with me, but not a one! It was not all for naught, as I came away with a love of etymology and Roman history from my Latin classes and just enough comprehension to be able to halfheartedly translate the occasional foray into any Romance language in a novel. I also walked away with some basics of other languages that are foreign to English-only speakers like the idea of gendered nouns.
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Ten days in Iceland is just enough to make it around the country’s famous Ring Road. This overview goes over the basics of our trip.
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We booked our flight on Icelandair in September 2017, about 9 months before our June-July 2018 trip. We planned to arrive a little before midnight and spend two nights in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik. But, as we’ve experienced before, the risk of booking a flight so far in advance is that the airlines may shift their schedules. A few months before our trip, we learned that our flight had shifted to being a red-eye, getting us in the following morning at 6:30am local time. We contacted our Airbnb hosts, who had no problem with the delayed check-in.
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From Reykjavik we headed toward our first destination of the day, Þingvellir National Park. The most densely packed tourist spots on our trip were during this day. While we didn’t complete the so-called Golden Circle just outside of Reykjavik (ours was more of a Golden Half-Circle), the stops along the way are very popular for individuals and tour buses taking day trips from Reykjavik. Getting photos without inadvertent photo bombers was ranged from quite tricky to entirely impossible.
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After a quick run to Hvolsvöllur for some basic groceries at Krónan grocery store, we headed to the shore to catch a ferry from Landeyjahöfn to Heimaey, the only inhabited island of Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).
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