Ruby and Tony - Around the World

• **** We are sad to report that our back up hard drive crashed when we came back to Orlando in Sept/October and have lost a lot of photos from the rest of Germany, as well as Dubai and Nepal so we are posting any of the photos that we could recover from our iPhone and/or GoPro *****

We said goodbye to wine country and headed off the Hamburg…I know it wasn't the most direct way to Hamburg from Dusseldorf but we’re on vacation. The highlight of our visit in Hamburg was definitely visiting our two friends Andreas and Katharina who we met while crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia on our last around the world trip! I’m not sure exactly how much wine or German beer we went through while visiting them but boy was it fun!

These two are such adventurers! Andreas’ photography blog at photos.andreastephan.com is so inspiring! He is so very talented! Katharina works for a tour/travel agency and specializes in Southeast Asia so of course we picked both their brains about photography and got expert help planning the rest of our trip

They spoiled us the whole time— as fellow world travelers they know how simple things like doing laundry and having a home cooked meal can make a long trip just a little more comfortable. First it was the fresh sole filets from the Baltic Sea for dinner and then on our last night they treated us to a traditional Raclette (which is apparently for special occasions like holidays!) We will miss them on this trip but we definitely look forward to a visit from them in California next year!!

Our main purpose of visiting was for our friends but there are also some pretty parts of Hamburg. Michael’s church has a gorgeous white/marroon interior with stained glass windows, Moenckebergstrasse Street is great for shopping and the coffee and breakfast at Cafe Paris can’t be beat!!

The Rauthaus Town Hall is a nice building to walk around and has a beautiful fountain in the center atrium that we enjoyed in the sunshine.
We learned about the North vs South German rivalry: the Northerners are annoyed that the “Bavarian” culture is what has been stereotyped as German in places like the U.S. while the south views the Northerns as “fish heads” since they live in mostly port cities like Hamburg.

We loved the Mosel Valley so much we couldn’t resist visiting the Rhine River Valley as well. It was supposed to be a 3 hour drive us to ——- but we detoured in Heidelburg and got lost so it ended up taking closer to 5 or 6 hours. The small town of St. Goar is smack dab in the center of the Rhine and a perfect takeoff point to visit the other towns via ferry or car. There is a gorgeous castle just across the water from the hotel we stayed at: Hotel An de Fahre (which translates to On The Ferry).

St. Goar by day:

St. Goar by night:

The hotel An de Fahre (45 Euros/night) is in a super convenient waterfront location just next to the ferry station. We totally fell in love with the owners Max and Alyssea! He’s German and she’s from Kazakstan (the first person we’ve ever met from there!) We got to know them over a couple of beers and blog writing in the hotel lounge. They were super sweet and did everything to make our stay as comfortable as possible. The beds were soft, the bathrooms spotless! We would definitely stay there again. We were spoiled by Alyssea’s home cooked breakfast (which was included in our room rate). Super delicious food with huge portions big enough to fill yourself up for the entire day. They also treated us to a lovely home-cooked barbecue which was really special for us (especially after being on the road for so long). We are really looking forward to going back to the area to see Max and Alyssea! They lent us their local guidebook so we could explore the area. . . . and explore we did:

We drove to the adjacent small town of Bacharach and found a path to hike up the steep vineyards for a view of Rhine. WOW!

I thought Ruby was going to have a heart attack as I chose to hang precariously on the hillside to take some of these grapevine shots!

Bacharach is pretty adorable with a village type feel. . .

While walking around we found a great Greek restaurant called Zeus. It was authentic and super delicious. The ouzo shots at the beginning were a nice surprise We had the pork plate, zucchini and tzatziki and are still thinking about it today. The chef is actually Greek and his wife is German which explains why the food was so good!

On the way back from Bacharach we saw a huge rainbow across the Rhine and it was super close to the famous rock called Loreley which is a grey cliff that towers 433 feet above the Rhine. Legend has it that this was the most dangerous section of the River Rhine during the middle ages and the spot where the mythic siren Loreley used to sit atop the cliff combing her hair. Her beauty and singing would lure sailors to their deaths on the cliff below:

On our last day in St. Goar we drove through another town called Braubach and enjoyed views of another gorgeous castle.

Our friend Phil Raffa had nominated Ruby and I for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. It was much harder to find ice than one would think—for future reference, in Germany, only specific gas stations sell ice (not grocery stores) and it’s expensive for ice! We ended up completing the challenge in Kobern-Gondorf one of our other favorite little towns.

We were sad to leave the Rhine River Valley but we got on the road for our six hour drive North to Hamburg by the early afternoon.

Amazingly we made it to Heiko’s without getting lost at all!?! WOW! We must be getting better at driving in Germany He has an awesome flat super close to a nice church which we walked by at night. Like all good things in Germany. . . his apartment required an uphill hike up 4 flights of stairs LOL

We got the true Bavarian experience with Heiko and his girl Yvi—an awesome German dinner with some local specialities like “Spätzle”, a pasta made with large amounts of eggs, another dish that reminded us of an omlette. . . .and of course Schnapps shots!! We stopped at some local bars in Stuttgart and checked out the scene while having a few beers. Very low key night, just what we needed after all that driving around the Mosel.

Recovering from the shots, we woke up late and had weitwurst (white sausage) with sweet mustard a pretzel and topped it all off with a Hefeweizen! Heiko says this is a true Bavarian breakfast. . not sure about that. . . but it was delicious!

We spent the rest of the day exploring some of Stuttgart. We saw the center of town, views from a rooftop and the Mercedes logo of course (since this is where Mercedes is manufactured!).

We showed Heiko some places he hadn’t been either. The library is amazing!! We love the symmetry and clean lines.

Heiko also promised us a huge castle. . . and he did not disappoint! Yvi, Heiko and the two of us went to Hohenzollern which was straight out of a fairytale. The hike uphill was definitely worth it: great views, history and not a bad place to stop for an afternoon beer and currywurst—definitely the fanciest Biergarten we’ve ever been to!

That night we hung out with some of Heiko, Yvi and Heiko’s local friends Ollie and Kathie. . . we had such a great time and hope to see all of them in California next year! Of course the German Giant had to have Ruby climb one last hill. . this one was to see Stuttgart by night!

With the rental car fiasco out of our hair and the freedom to drive anywhere. . . we were finally off! I was super excited to be driving on the autobahn but luckily for Ruby our rental car wouldn’t go that fast. . . small economy Opel cars aren’t exactly known for racing LOL.

Originally we were heading straight to Stuttgart from Dusseldorf and on the way we stopped for our first Bratwurst of many. . . unfortunately it was at a gas station (I know, I know we are risk takers!). It also came in the smallest bun for such a large sausage. . weird. . . but it was yummy.

Looking at the map, Ruby (the navigator) noticed that there were lots of grapes on the tourist map and detoured us straight to wine country. Wow! What an awesome surprise, this was not even on our itinerary for visiting Germany but would definitely come back here in a heartbeat. We started in the Mosel Valley at a town called Kobern-Gondorf and loved the feel of the area immediately. It’s hard to describe the beauty but all along the Mosel River is a small windy road lined with vineyards rising steeply on both sides of the hills. It’s even more stunning when you notice all the medieval castles perched above the small towns along the way.

We ended up in Alken and admired the grapevines before an an elderly couple showed up and led us to a local restaurant where we had our first glass of German vino. We were in such awe of the beauty of this place that we lost track of time. . . okay, so maybe it was the wine?

A that point we decided to stay right in the middle of the Mosel Valley. We found the perfect place: Guesthouse Am-Markt in Treis-Karden: nice rooms with a great view of the steep vineyards— a steal at 45Euros/night or $60 USD.

Dinner was at a local “weingut” haha— it means winery in German but Ruby and I like to say that we don’t have beer bellies— we have “weinguts” LOL! Our waitress Barbara at Weingut Weinstube Otto Knaup was super sweet and she gave us a great mini-introduction to German food. . . we had our first ever authentic German Schnitzel that night. .. Jaeger Schnitzel actually (which is pork with a mushroom sauce), a german salad which was pretty good. . . and a non-sweet riesling from the Mosel Valley of course. Barbara loves to travel too so perhaps we’ll see her in California one of these days.

The next day we continued along the Mosel with a plan to make it to the end of the Mosel Vine Valley in Trier and then continue on to our 3 hour drive to Stuttgart in time for dinner. In the morning we thought we would try a waffle for breakfast, and I played a crazy game of charades at the German Bakery downstairs in order to get a topping on the waffle—I ended up with cherries which is common in Germany. Forget about syrup and strawberries though! We enjoyed it in our room with a view of the grapevines outside.

Burg Eltz (a beautiful castle) was just across the narrow Mosel River from Treis-Karden so we decided to cross over and see it for ourselves. You can easily park at the base, pay 3 Euros for parking in the lot and hike up about 45 minutes through the forest. Wow! This was our first castle and I know that Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich is supposed the be the inspiration for the Disneyland castle but this one looks like a close contender to me!

It was raining which got us moving again, we ended up in Cochem. The bridge crossing the Mosel was decorated with beautiful lamp posts and flowers. It was an idyllic place to stop for a photo for sure!

Lunch was spent in Beilstein. An adorable little town, wish we had more time there! Next time for sure. . . We found that the last few towns after Beilstein were not nearly as nice, so our advice would be to turn back there and head back toward Koblenz stopping at towns on the opposite side of the river. Skip Trier altogether and see Roman ruins in Italy!

We thought the trains in India were bad. . .but the ones in Amsterdam were just as crazy! We could see people walking up and down the aisles confused over where to sit and luggage everywhere! Of course these ones are exponentially more expensive, at 70 Euros per person to take the ICE train from Amsterdam to Dusseldorf Germany. I thought Ruby was going to have a heart attack over our budget!

When we arrived into Germany we immediately noticed the difference in attitude from people in The Netherlands. Not to say there’s anything wrong with people from the Netherlands but sometimes we got the feeling that they just wanted us to spend money and go home. Meanwhile, Germans seem to be straight shooters, really a no-nonsense type of people that really don’t care who you are, where you come from or what you think of them.
Who knew that Dusseldorf would have a cute little aldstadt (aka old town) and people hanging out along the waterfront.

There was also great shopping and every type of food you could imagine. We had the most delicious tapas at a restaurant called “La Copa” in the main square. Tony had his first beer in Germany

. . . and they really did a good job with our usual Spanish faves of “pimientos de padron" and “gambas al ajillo”.

While eating dinner outside it was fun to watch this wacky old Bavarian guy (you can recognize them by their silly outfits) pushing a cart that played German organ music!

We finally got back to our attic room and watched a beautiful orange-red sunset over the buildings from the Altus Guesthouse (which by the way was a steal at 44 euros a night with our own bathroom and super convenient location close to public transportation). We would definitely stay there again and would book the top room in the attic— even though it’s a hike to the top room, the skylight and lack of noise upstairs from neighbors make it worth it!

• ***************************************Small Note on Car Rental Disaster Avoidance*************************************************

We had such a fiasco when renting our car at the Dusseldorf airport. We always use CarRentals.com and love it but we are going to try and AVOID FROM DOLLAR/THRIFTY CAR RENTALS in Europe!! They have the cheapest daily or weekly rates to lure you in but then they require you to have/buy collision insurance (for hundreds of extra dollars!!) and then they have a silly policy requiring you use ONLY a PLATINUM MASTERCARD (not a regular mastercard) if you want to use your credit card to cover the collision insurance. They also require PROOF of your Collision Damage Waiver from your U.S. credit card company with your name, credit card number, location and value of coverage in writing at time of rental. After a few hours of trying to get all this sorted out we gave up! Next time we won't bother with all that nonsense and rent with Sixt which doesn’t require any of that silly hassle and knows that almost all good US Credit cards provide Collision insurance when you use their credit card!?!

After a little confusion and a lot of euros we managed to make our way from the Hook of Holland into Amsterdam. The train ticket machines take only Euro coins! They don’t currently take US credit cards which is really annoying and of course our tickets were 20 euros each to get to Amsterdam. Luckily, a local woman took our cash and bought us the tickets on her card. The best option is to buy an OV-Chipkaart for 7.50 Euros and refill it as you travel around the Netherlands because it gives you discounted rates on fares and is easy to refill.

We stayed in the Almere area which is some of the newest, quietest and cleanest suburbs in the area but it is a little far from Amsterdam proper than we would want for next time. Our host Marc from AirBNB was super sweet and even had Karamel Stroopwafels waiting for us in the room! These things are super delicious — especially with some tea in the morning!!

On the train ride into Amsterdam we had to laugh at some of the towns such as Muiderpoort which literally sounds like “Murder Port” when they announce it and we wonder. . who’d want to visit there?? Of course now whenever Ruby gets mad at me, she says “Do you want me to buy you a one-way ticket to Muiderpoort”?” LOL

You can also see the iconic windmills on the train ride into Amsterdam and since we weren’t going anywhere else in the Netherlands we thought we’d stop in Weesp and try and see them. . . but it was a failed mission and we ended up on an hour plus detour in some little town LOL because a local bus driver eagerly nodded his head when we asked if we could see the windmills on his route (clearly he didn’t understand English!)

The Amsterdam train station is huge and is super convenient to all the places you’d want to see. We started walking the town and started at Dam Square and watched throngs of people collecting there to feed the pigeons.

We must say, it’s a really cool artsy type of city full of beautiful waterways
. . . by day:

. . . and by night:

and there's lots of bicycles!

As per our usual we had bad weather and were in between pulling out our umbrella and putting it away our entire time there! We wanted to go to Anne Frank’s House but the line was too long We got lost walking around in the art district of Jordan and decided to have a mini-picnic complete with the ubiquitous gouda cheese and wine at the waterfront.

We walked though the Flower Market on our way to Rembrandt Park and a stop for a snack turned into dinner at an Italian restaurant called Vapiano. It was delicious but we soon discovered that it is actually a chain restaurant?!?! So on this trip, instead of a “McDonald’s Moment” when we are either too tired or hungry to find a decent restaurant, we now have “Vapiano moments” where we have to resort to eating at a chain because it is cheap, easy to find, has wifi and consistently good Italian food

There are free ferries behind the central train station and we would recommend visiting the Film museum aka the Eye Museum. We tried to meet up with our friend Antonio who lives just next door but unfortunately with no phone or internet we couldn’t coordinate. The basement portion of the museum is free to visit and they have some cool visual art projects and a touch sensor color projector that we would love to have for our kids someday.

Since the Dutch colonized Indonesia you can find a lot of Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam and Ruby was on a mission for some exotic food so we found a local Indo place and got takeout for a picnic in Vondelpark.

This city has tons of shopping opportunities and we went on a bit of a shopping spree because Ruby forgot a few things in our haste to pack our apartment for the movers.

Of course a trip to Amsterdam wouldn’t be complete with a trip to coffee shop. . .but we didn’t partake. We did however walk through the Red Light District which is definitely packed with people and was like nothing we have seen before.

A quick 35 min drive from Sharon’s house in Coggeshall and we arrived at Harwich where we would board a 6 hour ferry across the English Channel dropping us off in the Hook of Holland port. The Stena Line is one of the most affordable (albeit slow) ways to get to mainland Europe. At 36 pounds per person or 60 USD p.p., it’s a steal, especially when you’re booking last minute. It’s easy to get from the Hook of Holland to Amsterdam via train— just be sure to BUY A TICKET ON THE FERRY for about 18 euros because the ticket machines in the train stations in the Netherlands do not accept euro bills, ONLY COINS and don’t accept any US credit cards?!?

Hurricane Bertha has been following us around with a vengeance and today we had choppy waves, rain and clouds as we crossed the English Channel.

As for the ferry itself, is pretty comfortable and more like a cruise ship with restaurants, casinos, children's playareas, an arcade etc. They also do night ferries where you can rent a cabin for the ride, we would suggest this because a cabin is only an extra 30 British pounds a night. If you do decide to take the day ferry, get there early and grab a comfortable seat near a power outlet. If you're running late like us then you will be sitting in the cafeteria next to the kiddie corner!

Oh our dear friend Sharon spoils us every time we visit her and this time was no exception. We first met her in Ecuador on our last Around the World Trip before she was married, a mother, or the owner of a 500 year old farm house! This is another example of the fact that if you invite us to visit you— there is a good chance we may actually show up at your doorstep!

Sharon took us on a short walking tour through Coggeshall and got some “Cream Tea” with her dad at the West Street Vineyard. Cream Tea is actually Tea and scones with jam and whipped butter cream. YUM!

The next day we had lunch in the small coastal town of Mersea. I insisted on Fish and Chips and it tasted just like almost any other fish and chips I’ve had. I think I’ve just about learned that fish and chips taste almost the same everyplace in the world…even along the English coast.

We stopped to see Layer Marney, the beautiful church where Chris and Sharon were married and WOW it is amazing. Wish we could have been at their wedding! Their adorable and sweet daughter Elizabeth aka Bonkey steals the show every time

Eating out is great when you don’t do it every day so we were grateful to have the the opportunity to cook. Chris and I drove down the butcher grabbed some fresh meat and veggies to grill. Sharon made an amazing Pavlova desert with fresh picked strawberries from the market and eggs from her sister’s chickens…talk about fresh!

Chris and Sharon went away for a night and left us the house to ourselves. . . aaaah we took some time to relax at their house and cook another meal. A visit to the butcher to grab some marinated pork and we were in business. After figuring out how the old fashioned Aga stove worked we had a great dinner in their amazing Conservatory (sun room).

Sometimes we splurge so we had to have some more good food at Bauman’s Braisserie a Michelin star rated restaurant in the adorable little Coggeshall town! The lamb in a mint sauce and spanish style Gambas all ajillo and pimientos de padron tapas were so so yummy! Next time we’ll spend more time chilling at the bar at the restaurant.

Our car was due to return today so we decided to drop it off at a small town near the train station. Boy are we glad we rented a car…the train back cost almost as much as our car for the entire week! We stopped in the small romantic town of Dedham with it’s gorgeous church parish, and small river boats. It was too late for a row-boat so we decided to hike though the cow fields along the river. This turned out to be quite the adventure…battling cow patties, confusing directions, a not-to-scale map and even charging cows. It’s about 45 min to the small town of Flatford and another 45 or so back to the train station. What we thought would be a short walk in the country turned into a 2 hour/ 8 mile hike through the English countryside.

We arrived back a little after dark and stopped to grab some dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was a long hike back up the hill to the house but we managed to make it without getting run over by a speeding car (no sidewalks on the dark windy road). By the way whoever said England has the best curry has never been to India or San Francisco!

After we had a few drinks we managed to talk Chris into driving us to the ferry in Harwich Thank you soooo much for all the hospitality and we look forward to a visit from them in California.

Salisbury is a beautiful small historic town with a huge central cathedral.

We walked around town exploring and Ruby found some nachos (her favorite) and tried some local spirits in the market.

On the road again we found our way to Oxford. WOW, what a beautiful place to go to school. I wonder what the tuition is?? This town is a photographer’s dream— a huge campus, with 36 colleges, several bridges and unique buildings.

Some faves were:

The Bridge of Sighs: See the underside of the bridge? It’s bright red, perhaps this was the inspiration for the trademark red soles of Christian Louboutoin shoes?

The rowboats: This shot is from the bridge above.

The Radcliffe Camera: It’s the Oxford library that was built in 1737 and it has a beautiful blue dome. For all you Harry Potter fans. . .pretty sure it wasn’t named after Daniel Radcliffe

and this cool door too

We found a cute tapas place for dinner— it was pretty authentic and fairly inexpensive (thank you college town prices!): 20 pounds for a bottle of wine and 4 large tapas!?! We left here content and headed for Essex County to visit our friends Sharon, Chris and Bonkey!!

We flew into London and headed straight for. . .

. . . the cheapest hotel in London--- 35 British pounds per night. . . at the Earl Court Gardens. After a night from hell trying to sleep at what we think was a crack house above a train station we started our drive south to Stonehenge. The roads are a little confusing and if you follow a sign to a castle (Windsor) it may turn into a two hour mission almost back to the Heathrow airport

We finally arrived at the visitor center for Stonehenge. It isn’t exactly at Stonehenge. . . it’s actually a mile or two away. It’s a pretty pricey endeavor at 15 pounds per person or $25 US pp. So we decided that we would take in the view from the barbed wire fence enclosing the ruins which isn’t that much farther away than the viewing platform you pay to use. Check out our photos and you can be the judge if it’s close enough for you

The visitor center is free and there's some pretty neat exhibits on the size/weight of the stones, the classic architecture from that time. . and of course you can actually touch one of the actual stones!

I went back to my skateboarding trespassing days and jumped two fences and crossed a field to get a closer look. Got some good shots at dusk and then at sunset before a security guard spotted me! You can also get a great view on the drive by That night we stayed in Salisbury at the Red Lion Inn in Salisbury, just about 20-30 min from Stonhenge which is super nice and arguably the oldest purpose-built hotel in Europe!

We have made the most of the 17 hours of daylight in this country and boy are we exhausted. We have burned the candle at ALL ends—not just both! Even though the Blue Lagoon is a classic tourist trap. . .today it sounded very appealing. . soaking our weary muscles for hours and applying mud masks to our faces in the thermal hot springs.

We went, it was expensive $60+ per person not including any beverages. It was a germaphobe’s nightmare. . with the sulphur smell, and tons of people in the water. Did the hot water feel good? Yes. Would we do it again? No.

On our next trip to Iceland we would recommend hiking up an hour or two to a natural hot spring in the middle of the mountains. . . just ask a local to direct you to one! Next stop: London!

We headed straight for Jokulsaron this morning. The glacier lake is pretty amazing. There are icebergs floating around in a lake and every now and again if you’re lucky you’ll spot sea lions playfully poking their heads out of the water.

There are also lots of birds for those twitchers out there.

It was a gorgeous sunny day for most of our time there but started pouring down minutes before we left. Luckily some of the ice still glowed blue in the sunlight.

Then back behind the wheel, we took Route 215 from the Ring Road. We stopped along the coast in Vik for some stunning views. We spent about 3 hours walking along the to the viewpoint looking west toward Mýrdalsjökull and the Dyrhólaey promontory, which you can see easily, it’s an enormous natural arch of rock.

We strolled along the black sand beaches and loved the striking Reynisdrangar sea stacks which reminded us a bit of the stone pillars in Southeast Asia.

Then of course we went up a windy road to these huge sea cliffs at Reynisfjall and which were spotted with puffins and LOVED every second of it. We got tons of amazing puffin shots— these birds are so photogenic!

No trip to iceland would be complete with walking on a glacier, so we took a road leading towards Solheimajokull.

Once there we ended up meeting a nice family from Syracuse, Kris and Jim and their son. Jim was nice enough to take the first step onto the glacier since Ruby was too chicken to do it herself! How crazy that there were no guards or safety ropes etc. . . in place. We literally drove up to a glacier and started walking on it crevasses and all!

On the drive back we stopped to take some Icelandic pony glamour shots at sunset LOL!

Getting pretty exhausted this night we stopped in Selfoss and found a little guesthouse $95/nt owned by Vladmir, the same guy who owns the main hostel in town. He really wanted us to come for drinks at the bar with him but we were pretty tired so Tony went alone and had some local Gull beer with Vladmir and his brother.

Eeeeewww!!! The hot water in our guesthouse smelled like sulphur. Try bathing in that?! Apparently this is common in Iceland but from here on out we were going to try and avoid this! We got on the road pretty early heading along the Southern Coast today with a goal to make it Jokulsaron which is about 4 hours away if you drive direct. With 17 hours of daylight you think we would get there no problem but of course, there were too many amazing stops along the way and we didn’t make it all the way there. We ended up stopped in at a cute guesthouse in a small town called Svinafell for $105/nt about 45km short of our destination.

There aren’t words to describe the beauty of Southern Iceland so we’ll just share photos:

Seljalandsfoss was unique because of the way the rock formations jut out you could walk BEHIND the waterfall!

Even the drive is picturesque with rolling hills and sheep grazing

Skógafoss is one of the tallest waterfalls in Iceland. It is the end result of a long river and 20 smaller waterfalls. Stunning to see in person. There’s a really long set of stairs on the site and it’s definitely worth the hike all the way up to the top to see it from all angles.

Yup, that's Ruby under a double-rainbow!

There’s even another hike following the origins of this waterfall that goes on for miles at the top of it.

We made a quick stop in Vik for some grilled lamb— YUM! They definitely know how to cook meats and soups here!

A huge storm was coming through so we decided to keep heading towards Jokulsaron instead of stopping in Vik for the night. Most tourists stop traveling in the early evening but we are glad we kept going because the long drive along volcanic terrain, old lava flows surrounded by glaciers is much prettier with a nice sunset than without it!

TRAVEL TIP:***We will say that this is not a place to come with your young children. They are not concerned about safety or liability here. . . you can walk right up to the edge of 200 foot rock face, glacier crevasse, or waterfall and there is no guard, safety fence, rail or rope in sight!?!

So we have started our second Around the World Trip and are super excited to share our photos and experiences with you all! So here we go . . . .

Iceland wasn’t even a blip on our must-see radar…we only booked a 3 night stopover because it was cheaper than going direct to Europe. . . little did we know that this country would blow us away with it’s natural beauty, friendly people and delicious hearty food.

After a sleepless red-eye flight all we wanted to do was take a nap but unfortunately for us the Tunguvegur Guest House $75/nt we booked would not let us check in until 5pm…YES 5PM! So of course we did the next best thing. . .start exploring the city! We rented a little rental car. . not cheap at $85/day + fuel cost and headed straight for downtown Reykjavik. We found free parking on a residential street just a few blocks down from the Hallgrimskirkjha Cathedral (yes that is how you spell it). Reykjavik is a cute little city that is very walkable and many of its sites and museums are only blocks away from each other.

It was windy and cold outside so the first thing we did was get some hot and spicy noodles (yum) to warm up and started exploring the shops. Of course at the beginning of our trips our bags are always overstuffed with needless items we’ll get rid of along the way but for now we pretended we had room in our luggage to buy something!

Our must sees in Reykjavik are 1) the Harpa Concert Hall with it’s crazy geometric lines of glass and mirrors

. . .and 2) the great city views from inside and outside the Hallgrimskirkjha Cathedral.

The waterfront was also very pretty with a cool stylized metal sculpture of a viking ship.

We wished we hadn’t booked a non-refundable room when we finally got into the Tunguvegur Guest House. . . it was like staying in a college frat house complete with mismatched furniture, random sheets and towels that may have been made of cardboard? Not a good way to start the trip. . perhaps the next night will be better?

After checking into our room Ruby said “it’s still light out so let’s do a little of the Golden Circle tour”. . . . little did I know that this would turn into a full on golden circle tour! Of course this is a must do in Iceland and we only had three nights here. We drove along the gorgeous countryside and started up in the rift valley where the continental shelfs divide.

Tþingvellir park has big skies and gorgeous lakes.

We continued driving on until we got to the Geysir, the geothermal hot spot that lends its name to ALL geysers. WOW! The Stokkur erupts every few minutes and it was so cool to watch the pressure build up, we watched several eruptions that were as high as 120 feet! Check out the sequence we took below and look closely for the little people in some of the shots that can help give you an idea about how high up the water spurts!

By this time it was getting very late although sunset isn’t until about 10:30pm this time of the year so we grabbed some delicious warming mushroom soup (they do make great soups in Iceland!) and headed off to the last stop: the beautiful Gulfoss waterfall. All we can say is prepare to get a little wet because there’s a lot of mist! It’s amazing the power of flow of the water at this site.

We ended with a pretty sunset over the snow capped mountains as we contemplated our long journey ahead on our drive back to the guesthouse that night.

Sharks, Stingrays and Moray eels everywhere! We thought we would try something new since sometimes words and photos just aren't enough! Our scuba/snorkel experience in Belize was phenomenal- some of the best diving we've done to date was just off of Caye Caulker. Check it out. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to SHARE!

Also can check out more awesome photos at TonyandRuby.com

Tony & Ruby