THE OTHERWORLDLY BEAUTY OF ICELAND

We figured right after Christmas was the perfect time to visit Iceland — it’d be freezingly cold and practically always dark, how could it possibly be any better than that?

What we were in for was a big surprise that turned out to be an amazingly beautiful experience. First of all, the ‘always dark’ had a nice side effect. While the sun would rise only around 10am and set already at 3pm, actually both sunrise and sunset take more than an hour each. So for a good two hours each day, the scenery would be one soaked in pastel colors transforming even the most mundane urban sight into a little wonder.

In total we spent about a week in Iceland exploring most of the southern part of the island, including many of the most famed spots. Our first stop was at the Blue Lagoon, a natural hot spring where we stayed the night in the accompanying hotel, Silica.

After the Blue Lagoon it was time to explore the island:

And finally we ended up in Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland. With less than 150,000 inhabitants it was quite easy to find our way around and explore the city on foot.

Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran church, is among the tallest structures of Iceland.

A frozen lake in the middle of the city. Lots of people use it for ice skating.

But what would be Iceland without seeing the Northern Lights, aka Aurora Borealis! We were lucky enough to see them twice, out of our four “hunting trips” at night.

Post originally published on our blog: http://www.dennislydia.com/the-otherworldly-beauty-of-iceland/