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Post by igs on Feb 7, 2017 7:52:58 GMT
I love to travel too. Ireland is lovely but small! So we Irish tend to like to visit places further afield. My most interesting recent trip was to Alaska. Always wanted to go there and loved it. We even got to fly to a location within the Arctic Circle in a tiny propellor plane. Felt a bit like Indiana Jones. Then we went to the Yukon and stayed in Dawson city which has been kept exactly as it was in the Gold Rush. Holiday of a lifetime. Next up is a return trip to Quebec. Was there years ago but got interested in seeing it in more detail through reading Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache novels which go into French Canadian history is some detail so have got me wanting to find out more. The top two places on my future wish list are Japan and as much of South America as possible. Come to Finland and you'll get even better than that! Smack down in the middle of the Arctic Circle we've got the ugliest, crappiest, most touristy and tacky mall you'll ever see. You can even bankcrupt yourself by posing with Father Christmas and buying the tragically over-priced photo as a memento! Forget the beauty of nature and the ultima thule feeling of being far up north when you can commercialize. I've never been to Alaska, but I've been thinking about taking a roadtrip to northern Norway (Nordkapp and Lofoten) for a while now. Just have to plan it and get someone/a few people to go with me, cause it's like a 20-hour drive from where I live to Nordkapp (and some more to Lofoten, which - fun fact - Google Maps insists is in Afghanistan for some reason when you try finding driving instructions.) I've always wanted to visit the extreme North and the extreme South, the North part is a bit more doable now. Should've gone to Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego) when I was in South America - which I highly recommend for visitation, as you know! - but it's pretty expensive and so damn far away (the southernmost I ever went was Buenos Aires. Or Santiago, I'm not sure which one is more southern.) I don't really have any actual trips planned. I'm going to Stockholm next month for two days but that hardly counts. Boo.
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Post by ellie on Feb 7, 2017 9:29:11 GMT
We even got to fly to a location within the Arctic Circle in a tiny propellor plane. Felt a bit like Indiana Jones. I hope your pilot wasn't named Douglas Richardson tealin.tumblr.com/image/105561522898 Lol. In fact it was even scarier than Douglas. It was a girl who looked about 18 and it took three attempts to get the second propellor spinning before we took off. Then she kept turning her head to talk to us when, to me, we seemed inches from the side of a mountain! She was telling us she did the journey three times a day as it was also a service for the residents of Fort Yukon, the village within the Arctic Circle we were visiting. After that I figured she knew what she was doing but still kept glancing at the dodgy propellor half expecting it to stop and us to plunge into the wilderness. 😀 I was pretty relieved when we touched down in Fairbanks on the return journey!
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Post by ellie on Feb 7, 2017 9:33:43 GMT
IGS - yes they do Visit Santa in Lapland plane trips from Ireland. I'd heard it was a bit tacky but I'd no idea there was a Shopping Mall there. I would like to visit Finland though.
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Post by igs on Feb 7, 2017 10:38:11 GMT
IGS - yes they do Visit Santa in Lapland plane trips from Ireland. I'd heard it was a bit tacky but I'd no idea there was a Shopping Mall there. I would like to visit Finland though. Yep, I think for 70% of the year that mall is the main source of income for the place. I've only been there once, it was late-October and the weather was miserable and it was during a 5-day long party week with some fellow law students...I don't think we appreciated the place that much lol. But like half of Rovaniemi's (it's Lapland's "capital" and easily the ugliest city I've ever visited) students work there so I guess there's a profit to the existence of the ugly ass mall. You really have to get away from the city to enjoy Lapland, there are gorgeous sights there and polar night is surprisingly pretty up north (although midnight sun is a lot nicer!) There are tons of organized Lapland trips from the UK, Ireland, Germany, US etc but they all seem like rip-offs to me. I remember one British lady went on one of those trips (read about it in Daily Mail where she bitched about everything including but not limited to the fact that people here were speaking *gasp* Finnish not English and her kids being traumatized when "Rudolph" was served at meals....) and it cost like £4000 or something. You can easily get to Lapland from London for less than 100€, the flights from LON-HEL and HEL-Rovaniemi are super cheap.
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Post by roverpup on Aug 5, 2017 14:53:43 GMT
Anyone on this forum ever been to Iceland? Dan and I are thinking of making that our next destination (next year). I would like to see the Northern Lights (I have seen them here in Canada and they were awe inspiringly beautiful), the geysers, going to the Blue Lagoon and doing some hiking. Are there any good museums in Reykjavik that explore the cultural heritage of the island? We were thinking next September would be a good time (I hear that around the Autumn Equinox is one of the best times to view the Northern Lights).
Any advice, tips and suggestions are always welcome.
:-))
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Post by ellie on Aug 5, 2017 22:24:52 GMT
Yes. I've been to Iceland. It's fabulous. Reykjavic is interesting but very small. The Cathederal that looks like a rocket and the new concert hall down by the waterfront are great. If you really want to get a good sense of the cultural history then I would recommend you take one of the tours that includes a visit to the site of the ancient parliament. It's an extremely interesting place both in its location (part of the Earth's tectonic plates run through it and you can look down into the chasm between them) & also in the fascinating cultural history of the parliament and how it operated.
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Post by igs on Aug 8, 2017 9:02:06 GMT
I've been to Iceland, it's wonderful. Neither was a tourist trip per se, one was an excursion with other students and one was just a weekend trip for a friend's wedding two years ago so I don't have extensive travel/tourism experience from Iceland. The Northern lights thing, it's probably great but I would not recommend going there during winter. My first trip to Iceland was in February and we traveled around by bus for a couple of days and I just remember being freezing everywhere except hot springs lol. I've some photos from Gullfoss which are amazingly beautiful in winter but I literally look to be in physical pain. 😂 We didn't even see any Northern lights so it's not like it's a guarantee. Summer in Iceland isn't particularly hot either but it was very nice then even though I was only there for three days and one was taken over by the wedding (although it was right next to Eyfjallajökull which was cool!) My friend drove me around a but, went to Seljalandsfoss for example which is very nice and relatively close to Reykjavik (like 1,5hrs.) If you're not obsessed with the idea of going to Blue Lagoon, there are cheaper (and free!) options all around the country. Reykjavik is small but super cute. The cathedral (Hallgrimskirkja) will look familiar to you if you've seen Marvels Thor. They designed the main building of Asgard after it. A word of warning, Iceland is VERY expensive these days. The prices had doubled or tripled or more between my two visits (2011 and 2015) and my friend told me now it's even more expensive than 2 years ago.
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Post by igs on Aug 8, 2017 9:03:59 GMT
Sorry for all the typos and awful structure of the above post lol. I'm on phone so editing is a bitch.
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Post by roverpup on Aug 8, 2017 16:07:47 GMT
Thanks fellow posters for the info on Iceland! I'll put the cathedral and concert hall on my list of places to see. :-)
A couple more questions (if I can call upon your patience with my peskiness for using you as a resource) -
We always like to use public transit on our travels (for twofold reasons - We both HATE driving and it is our way of combating pollution). I know there are no trains on Iceland but has anyone here used any type of bus transport? Does it allow you to get to most areas of the island? Anyone ever traveled the Golden Circle route around the island by bus?
We are planning on going in September because it supposed to be one of the optimum times of the year for the Northern Lights and the weather isn't really that cold (Canadian POV here). Is that a busy time of the year in Iceland?
As far as the prices are concerned - it isn't too big of a bother for us. I'm not out to waste money (who is???) but Dan and I always put a priority on having a great time and experiencing new things so we don't mind spending a fair buck to get to that objective. We have stayed in hotels that are more than $2000 Cdn a night (not for long mind you!!) if it was exactly what we wanted to do and see (I don't mind being pampered now and again). But we aren't afraid to sleep in a tent and sleeping bag either (and once we even slept in the car overnight) so it all depends on the circumstances.
One time in Greece we were in a hotel in Santorini that had no AC during July/August and we just pulled the mattress off our bed and dragged it outside to the edge of the cliff and slept out there, under the stars to catch the sea breezes. It was fun! And rather romantic! 😍😍😍
But of course I don't mind a place with room service and a spa either!! LOL!
:-))
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Post by igs on Aug 8, 2017 16:30:17 GMT
No problem. I absolutely adore Iceland so it's a pleasure to talk about it. If you don't want to drive I wouldn't recommend Iceland though. You can do Golden Circle by bus, an organized tour I imagine, saw some pamphlets for it (I was in a big group so we just had the whole bus rented for ourselves.) But if you really want to see Iceland beyond just the regular tourist hunts (so basically Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon) you really need a car. :/ I've tons of Icelandic friends and those who aren't from Reykjavik drive or go by small planes to their home towns because there really isn't much in the way of easily accessible public transport. Like of my friends in Helsinki almost no one has a car because we don't need it, but I don't know anyone in Iceland who doesn't drive. If you don't want to rent a car you might as well forget 99% of the country or just do guided tours which can be great of course but I personally like to divide my time between organized stuff and independent travel. As for what type of a car you absolutely need a 4-wheel, a sturdy big one at that. A friend of mine rented a Fiat Punto and she told me she was terrified it'd flip over all the time lol it's very windy and stormy pretty much everywhere in Iceland. I went sailing by the coast of Reykjavik last time I was there and it was fabulous (although cold as hell even in July!) so I definitely recommend it, though getting a sail boat might be hard. But there are loads of boat tours. I had no idea there would be Northern Lights as early as September! That's pretty cool.
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