Today was spent hiking around Djúpivogur, a small fishing town in East Iceland, where slow tourism is highly valued. The air was filled with the scent of Arctic flora and vibrating with the sound of land and sea birds, and the weather was just right for a mindful walk.
For another part of the group, the pace was faster: a bus ride along mountain slopes to get to the largest glacier of Iceland, Vatnajökull. The glacier has ground up so much rock over thousands of years that the southern coast of Iceland has no harbor—only black, sandy beaches. We visited one of them, but first we geared up and did a boat ride on Fjallsárlón, a less known lagoon that has formed at the end of one of Vatnajökull’s glacier outlets. We enjoyed the majesty of the glacier and the beauty of barnacle geese swimming in between the floating glacial blocks, while our local guide gave us insights into the latest discoveries in glaciology.
