M and A in Switzerland

Last weekend, I went to Como with Doris, a friend from work from my Ticino days - the same one who came to the Chelsea Flower Show with me earlier this year.
You will see a theme develop regarding our travels... this time, we went to the "Orticolario", an annual flower show in Como.

Here are a few impressions - without detailed comments, otherwise it will take ages again until I get this published...

Yumm. Well, it was in Italy, after all...

Fun things to do with wood...

... and fun things to do with fabric

Lake Como

Art ?

Personally, I thought neither the dangling price tag nor the bamboo "lining" did this display any favours... shame, really, as the house, the cast iron window boxes, and planting were really beautiful.

Fun things to do with rusty metal

Shop till you drop - as opposed to Chelsea, where the main theme was "look now, buy on the internet later", the Orticolario took a more traditional "buy now, pay cash, and have fun squeezing all the plants into you car" approach... thankfully, Doris had borrowed a van, so she and her 3 sisters could shop to their hearts' content

So here's what we did for our holiday this summer- Iceland by Tandem

Iceland Summer 2012

27 Jul - Cycle & Train from home to France

M: We set off at home and made our way to a hotel near Basel airport. Part of the route we cycled, but for some of it we took a train. All I remember is that it was hot. Very hot. When we got to the hotel in the evening, a thermometer in town was displaying 38 C. I started to look forward to freezing in Iceland.

28 Jul - Flight to Reykjavik

Getting Ready to Fly

M: In the morning, we cycled from the hotel to the airport, where we packed and padded the tandem (well, Andy did, I had only contributed by coming up with the idea of using pipe lagging, and Andy had prepared well and cut it all to size and labelled it in advance of the holiday).

All went well, despite some threatening noises being made by the French luggage clerk at the airport: he made it clear they were not taking any responsibility for any potential damage to the bike, but thankfully the tandem arrived in one piece the other end. So as our first activity we cycled the (boring and ugly) roadfrom Keflavik Airport into Reykjavik.
We got to the Reykjavik campsite in time to quickly put up the tent and then have an hour left before closing time at the neighbouring public swimming pool, so we rewarded ourselves for all the travelling by sitting in a nice hot puddle - perfect relaxation after a flight !

29 Jul - Flight to Isafjordur

Now the REAL adventure started. We took a tiny little Air Iceland plane to get from Reykjavik to the West Fjords, to Isafjordur

Arrival Isafjordur Airport...

... and campsite

Right by the campsite was a lovely old museum and a fish restaurant

Restaurant

Fishing Museum

In the evening, we went to the restaurant, and had one of the most wonderful meals. No menu, as they simply serve a big buffet of catch of the day. We both agreed that it was one of the best fish meals we ever had.

30 Jul - Isafjordur -> Þingeyri

"Road" is a relative term...

After all this travelleing on planes it was time to get pedalling. Our destination was Þingeyri- there is a shorter, flatter route we could have taken to get there, but it leads through a long tunnel, and so we took the "scenic route" over the mountain.

What a funky (punky) purple plant !

Thankfully we were prepared for the fact that it would not be a smooth road, but a rather rocky affair, and so it was. But it was worth it for the views we got - definitely better than a tunnel !

What we had not bargained for was the road ending in roadworks, or rather, a big digger and a big hole, but no workers in sight. After about 4 hard hours of slogging up and over the mountain, and with the tarmac of the next "real" road already in sight, there was only one thing for it... take everything off and carry bags and tandem past:

After that, it was a smooth and easy ride to the campsite, and we were rewarded with beautiful sunshine and a pleasant evening. Oh, and belgian waffles !

Bliss - Simbahöllin cafe in Thingeyri

31 Jul - Þingeyri -> Dynjandi

From Þingeyri we went to the famous Dynjandi waterfall. The road through the West Fjords was stunningly beautiful, and beautifully quiet, and the weather better than one dares to hope for in Iceland:

Nonethelss, it was a very chilly evening when we got to Dynjandi, and I was glad to get into my snuggly warm down sleeping bag.

1 Aug Dynjandi -> Flatey

One of the places we had visited before and definitely wanted to return to was the island of Flatey, so on Aug 1st we bid the West Fjords goodbye (although there would have been plenty more to see, if only we'd had a few more weeks...)
We had been given the wrong ferry times by the tourist information, so arrived 3 hours too early at the ferry terminal and didn't have much to do but wait - but look at how lucky we were with the weather !!!

Waiting for the ferry to Flatey

And eventually, off we went to Flatey, adding "boat" to the modes of transport used during our holiday:

Ooops - the tandem is too long to fit round the corner where the bikes go, so they have another solution...

For the tandem, going by boat meant flying again...

There are whale watching tours taking place in this area, but sadly we only saw the tour boats and no interesting wildlife. Still, it was a lovely evening for a ferry crossing:

Iceland in summer means long, bright evenings, and we had a great camping spot - however, the idyll was slightly marred by the noisy American campers next to us, who seemed to feel the need to let the whole campsite listen in to their stories :-(

Still, nature did its best to make up for it and distract us

Evening view from the camp site in Flatey

2 Aug Flatey -> Stykkishólmur

The next morning, we had a little walk round Flatey before taking the ferry further South, to Stykkishólmur. Of course we had to (re-)visit Flatey church, which has extraordinary ceiling paintings by a Catalan painter.

Outside the church, Flatey has pretty little houses, wrecked ships and puffins to admire (although the latter seemed to have gone into hiding, and only few were to be seen - maybe it has to do with breeding season being over?).

Flatey sheep make everywhere on the island their home

And I mean everywhere

In the afternoon, we took the ferry to the Snaefellsnes peninsula, which looked inviting with its snow-capped mountains.

View from the ferry towards Snaefellsnes Peninsula

However, as we had to consider our schedule to get back to Keflavik on time for our return flight, we did not have time to spend on Snaefellsnes, but instead had some food in Stykkishólmur and then went on our way East, to get to the roads leading further South. We had a lovely tail wind, pushing us along quite nicely. Eventually, we decided it was time to stop and put up the tent in a farm field (assuming that the "jau jau" sounds and vigorous nodding of the lady at the farm meant she had understood our sign language and was happy for us to do so).

3 Aug Somewhere Southeast of Stykkishólmur (Route 54) ->Hraunsnef Country Hotel

The next day was not particularly spectacular, other than that the hotel which was marked on our map and which we had aimed for turned out not to exist. So we pedalled on a bit further. Eventually the weather finally gave up on us, with it feeling rather cold and grey. So we decided that we had earned a night in a hotel, and got lucky in this respect, as just as we were getting a bit fed up we stumbled across Hraunsnef, a country hotel also offering cabins - oh the bliss of a sheltered, warm and dry cabin, and a restaurant where we could eat and drink something more exciting than camping food !

Dry, warm and an opportunity to charge our cameras and phones - heaven !

The right cabin was our home for the night

Andy testing the waters

To come soon...:

4 Aug Hraunsnef -> Trolland

Trolland was a pretty setting but in many respects was remarkably like being on a British campsite at a bank holiday weekend, but more of this to come...