The Golden Circle

There is a circuit which tourists in Iceland are encouraged to follow, a day's drive which visits three major and representative attractions: the great waterfall at Gullfoss, the spouting fountains of Geysir and the historic site of Þingvellir. This is known as the 'Golden Circle', and it makes for a very full day; and there are other stops you can make along the way, to climb up the beautifully regular crater at Kerið and walk round its rim, a smaller waterfall at Faxafoss - no wonder I came home overloaded with experiences and incapable of writing about anything more taxing than pizza! Gullfoss was magnificent, and the first chance I had to see what was meant by the descrition of Iceland's glacial rivers as "white", but not my favourite waterfall of the trip (oh, that's a whole other post); I loved wandering among the spouts and boiling mud of Geysir; but I could happily have spent the whole day - or more - at Þingvellir.

Þingvellir (the Thingmeads, or Parliament Meadow, as William Morris translates it) is the site where the Icelandic parliament met from its establishment in the tenth century until the end of the eighteenth century - a valley like a stage set, with a wall of rock on one side, split - as all of Iceland is split - by the rift between the continental plates, pulling the country in two directions along a fault which runs right through this heartland. So, at one end the mountains, at the other the lake, and between them this flat valley across whose floor a riven ambles indecisively; and a backdrop of rock, through which there runs a corridor lush with flowers, purple cranesbill and yellow buttercups. At the centre of this wall is a mound called the Lögberg - the Law Rock - on which the Speaker would stand and recite the laws of the country, one third in each year of his three year term. (This identification - like much else of the neatly packaged history provided for the tourist - is a mixture of conjecture, tradition and plausibility; the precise location of the Lögberg is not absolutely certain).

The place has the power of its geological structure; it has the resonance of its place in the history and the sagas of the nation; but it is also a lovely landscape in which to wander among the flowers and the rock and the clear waters. We spent at most a couple of hours there; janni camped there for two nights; Morris camped there for three. I like his delight in his first arrival at Þingvellir:

Once again that thin thread of insight and imagination, which comes so seldom to us, and is such a joy when it comes, did not fail me at this first sight of the greatest marvel and most storied place of Iceland.