Community Corner

Editor's Notebook: Wayland Patch Goes to Iceland

Sometimes even Patch editors need a vacation. Your Patch editor presents her images and thoughts from a few days in the land of fire and ice.

Everyone needs a vacation from time to time ... even Patch editors.

If you emailed me between March 29 and April 3, you (I hope) received a detailed, "I'm away," message that told you all about how to post on Patch and when I expected to once again check my email.

It did not tell you that I was on vacation in Iceland ... but a few people knew I was headed there and requested that I share some vacation photos and thoughts when I returned. So, I offer my editor's notebook and photo album from a few days in Iceland -- and I hope that you'll share your own thoughts about and photos from the country.

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Mountains and Lava Rocks and Hot Springs, Oh My

Iceland. It's a five-hour plane ride from Boston Logan that brings you face-to-face with an island country of pockmarked lava rock plains flanked by snow-capped mountain plateaus.

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It's woolly horses, sulfuric hot springs, violent waters and black sand beaches.

It's Viking history, lingering daylight and towering church steeples.

It's the beautifully eerie Northern Lights, ever-surprising weather and hotdog pride.

The Atlantic Ocean island is roughly the size of Kentucky, but claims a population less than half that of Boston proper. In the city, it's easy to forget that Iceland boasts so much land and so few people, but leave the city and your perspective evolves rapidly.

Get out of Reykjavik and the sheer expanse of the country becomes nearly overwhelming. Coming from a place like Boston, where the idea of isolation is nearly nonexistent, wide open spaces dotted with far more horses than people seem almost oppressive.

This isn't traditionally lovely landscape -- lush vegetation, colorful flowers, ancient trees are not the norm (at least in early spring). This is untouched landscape; it's landscape that takes you back to the days before modern roads or kilometers of electrical lines. It forces you to ponder the harshness of living in Iceland for the Vikings, early "modern" settlers and even residents at the turn of the 20th century.

It's a land that insists on being in charge. Icelanders have expertly coaxed their land into coexistence -- using its natural hot springs for power and health and hot water, harvesting a variety of food from its waters -- but Icelanders know that the land is fickle and, ultimately, dominant.

Tour guides in monster jeeps riding on the largest tires you've ever seen admit that they don't travel the country's icy, glacier-filled interior alone. Rental car agencies insist that their clients remain on specific roads only and sell "gravel insurance" to even the most careful of drivers.

Heed all the cautions, take them seriously and then venture out into the rugged loveliness.

Strike out north along Route 1, known as Ring Road since it encircles the entire country, and pass through the six-kilometer long tunnel that puts the Big Dig to shame. It's difficult to imagine lights or beams falling from the ceiling of this tunnel that passes under an inlet of the Atlantic on the way north to Borgarnes.

As you pass through tiny towns, notice the steeple piercing the sky in each -- and "piercing" is not an innocuous term. The architecture is stark. Concrete and corrugated metal, whitewashed walls, sharp angles. Beautiful in the way an Escher sketch makes you appreciate shadows and gradations of light and the mysteries hiding in corners.

The memory of the tiny fishing village of Borgarnes will appear positively metropolitan as you cruise nearly empty roads, surrounded by nearly empty fields, on the way to Thingvellir -- the birthplace of Icelandic Parliament, with a history that dates back to tribes and chieftains and Vikings and Oden.

Explosive geysers, thunderous waterfalls and everywhere ... Everywhere ... nature that has won.

Do you have images from Iceland? Add them to the ones I've included here. And if you've visited the country, please share your thoughts in the comments section.


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