Iceland Weather Impact

I had a great time in Iceland but did I ever pick the wrong week to go.  The temperature in Reykjavík was 3-4 degrees warmer than Brno every day, for three weeks, before I left.  However, I must have brought the  Czech weather to Iceland because it got quite cold the week that I was there.  Of course, my friends were quick to let me know that Brno had some nice Spring weather for a week.  Damn!

With the wind chill it got down to -16°C (3°F).  It was so bad that they closed all of the roads going in and out of the city.  You know it must be bad if even the locals couldn't drive in it.  The weather ended up cancelling my South Coast tour which meant that I wasn't able to stand behind the Seljalandsfoss Waterfall and I missed the black lava sand beaches.  It also meant that none of the whale watching tours operated either.  While this did put a cramp in my touring schedule it did force me to actually take a couple of days off and just relax.

My #1 reason for going to Iceland was to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).  I heard that they were quite visible on Sunday night but my tour was booked for Monday night.  Guess what...  Due to the snow, there were too many clouds and we weren't able to see anything.  And the tours were cancelled every other remaining night. 

However, on Sunday night, we did visit the "Bridge Between Two Continents".  The 18-meter long bridge allows you to cross the mid-Atlantic ridge and walk from Europe to North America.  It was pitch black, cold, and windy, so only three of us, out of 60, actually got off the bus to cross the bridge.  I don't understand why someone would go all the way there and not bother to get off of the bus.  It was too dark to take a photo but here's a daytime photo that I found out on the Internet.

Even though the weather could have been better, and I would have preferred not to miss out on my tours, it was still a wonderful trip.  I'm really happy that my readers chose Iceland as my first trip of the year.  I definitely plan to make it back there sometime.