This is an exact replica of a ship that was buried with an early chieftain of a region of Iceland, which was the custom of the day.  This is the type of ship that brought the hardy explorers across the North Atlantic from Norway to Iceland.

 

Most of the settlers were men.  Expeditions were made to Ireland and Scotland, to bring Celtic women to the  remote island, which is how those traditions were introduced to the culture and history of the island country.

Its pretty amazing to me how a ship so small could be so seaworthy - especially with 30 or so people on board, but they sailed one from here to New York without any difficulty at all.

Pretty ingenious.

Next to the ship was a house built in the old style of sod covered rock walls, with a sod roof, and wooden support structure. 

These types buildings were also found in Norway, Denmark, and other Viking settlements.  Several were found buried in ash near volcanoes which still periodically erupt today, which provide an excellent example of how these buildings were designed and utilized.

The sod was used for waterproofing and insulation.

some outbuildings in the more rural areas of Iceland are still built using this construction method.

The interior typically consisted of a bench running the length of the interior space along both the walls.  These were broken into cubes, using the support beams as the frame for the walls.

These cubes were used for sleeping, visiting, storage... whatever was needed.

weaving equipment, farming or fishing gear, tools, and the like were often set into side rooms, to keep them out of the main living area.

You don't associate Vikings with intricate glass containers and the like, but they were there...

This is a caldera.  A volcanoes' magma chamber burst up, causing the ground above it to collapse from the lack of support.

They had information plackards explaining the formation in several languages, which I found interesting.

It really looks as if something HIT the surface from orbit, rather than a volcano... there's no ash or tephra around the hole... but I guess not.

 

The water looked tourquoise blue, because it had minerals in it welling from hot spots in the crater floor, some 100 feet below the surface.  The water flowed through the ground to fill the crater.

Here's an aerial shot taken from the information Plackard.

We were looking at Kerio... Tjarnorholar erupted about 20 years ago or so, but only briefly.

 

There's no fence or anything to keep you from falling in.  The guide made it sound like it happens, because tourists get too close to try and get the perfect picture, and slide down the loose sand.

We stayed pretty well away from the edge.  Neither one of us likes heights that much, and we didn't have much of an interest in swimming.

I still have to say that this section sure looks like something came in at an angle... a meteor or something, that broke up just before it landed, and created the craters... the heat could have come because the crust is so thin in this area...

According to the placards, that's one of the theories being kicked around as to how it developed, but the larger camp was that it formed volcanically.

One of our stops on a tour was at the docks of a fishing village, I guess to show how modernized things were...

Not the most exciting thing, but I thought it was interesting

The ships were all back from their morning runs, and were being refitted with different nets for the evening runs.

This is a Monk fish.

Not much to look at, but the teeth are pretty impressive... I wouldn't want to get bitten by this guy.  The mouth is about 10 inches across or so. 

The fishermen use steel mesh gloves to pull these fish out of the nets.

Not pretty, but sure tasty!  On the trip, I had it boiled and in a soup, pan-fried, and in a "stew" that was more like mashed potatoes with fish in it.

These were supposedly Cod.

Coming from New England, and having went out on a fishing run on the Georges Bank... these were pretty small.  Cod are a BIG fish, at least on the Banks.

 

Along the valleys, typically covered in lava beds, steam vented from cracks, formed when rainwater seeped down to the hotter rocks, only a few meters down.

Here's a large power station... its actually right next to the Blue Lagoon.  Most of the electricity for Reykjavik comes from this plant.

One striking thing that I noticed about Iceland is that there are VERY few trees... nearly all of the island is low brush, grass, and moss-covered rocks... its eerie. 

Steam vents are everywhere

 

The scenery is very foreign.... its so completely different. 

Its sort of like the surface of the moon, only covered in moss and grasses instead of dust.

 

Driving to Reykjavik from the International Airport in Keflavik, and to and from the Blue Lagoon, you pass through a lava field that was laid down in the 1400's in an amazing series of eruptions that changed the landscape around the capital city.

Its an impressive introduction to the island country's volcanic history.

 

When you're driving, cinder cones dot the terrain all over the place.  The whole island, it seems, is, or relatively recently was, volcanically active.

It seems like its either that, or lava beds... everywhere, at least where we were, there were reminders of Iceland's volcanic nature.

This farmhouse is a good example of how they are structured.  A long beam runs down the center of the house, and the side structures, which look like buildings set side by side, are actually side rooms to the central structure.

The thought is that this type of building developed out of the Sod-Covered homes the Vikings built when they came here.

There are two "big" mammals on the island country: Sheep, and Reindeer, which are in the north.

There are no predatory animals, other than the arctic fox, so the farmers let the sheep roam essentially wild during the summer months.

In the fall, they round up all the sheep, and bring them here, to sort them out.  The sheep have tags on their ears, identifying them with their owner.  They are sorted out of the central coral, and into the fan-shaped pens, then loaded into trucks.

Making its way across a lava-encrusted valley floor, this river formed a nice falls area at the edge of a lava flow, down to the top of another one.

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