The following article first appeared on The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The centerpiece of Ellie Slott Fisher and Jon Roth’s trip to Iceland was spending New Year’s Eve in Reykjavik. They are shown here at the Seljalands waterfall.
When I told my Norwegian friend Lise that we were going to Iceland for New Year’s Eve, she questioned my sanity. In contrast to its nearly unlimited daylight in the summer, in the midst of winter, Iceland relishes about four hours of sunlight a day. Its skies change from rain to sleet to snow in a blink, and the ground is frequently so icy that you need to add metal tracks to your boots.
But even in winter, Iceland provides extraordinary vistas of ice-covered lava fields; natural hot springs as prevalent as community swimming pools; seafood so fresh it may have been caught that morning; breathtaking geysers that entertain every few minutes; tap water so clean it makes bottled water feel, well, foreign; waterfalls so majestic as to be humbling; and the piece de resistance: a New Year’s Eve display of bonfires and fireworks like nowhere else in the world.
Read the rest on The Philadelphia Inquirer.
