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Iceland Day 3: the South Coast

At 8:30 am, we boarded our Reykjavik Excursions bus and headed out of the city for points our South Shore Adventure trip. The natural sights in Iceland are amazing. Just when you think you're seen the most incredible, most picturesque scene on earth, the bus turns a corner and, oh look, there's a bigger mountain, a more stunning cliff, a cuter gaggle of puffins.








Our first stop was the tiny village of Eyrarbakki, right on the coast. Leave it to Icelanders to make metal siding look quaint. I love the wacky colors people choose to paint their houses too.















From Eyrarbakki,we went to Sólheimajökull Glacier to touch the tongue of the glacier. Walking towards the glacier, it's pretty easy to understand why so many sci fi movies have been filmed in Iceland. It's like walking on another planet. Actually walking on the glacier requires a lot more gear but we touched it at least. It's so cliché really, but looking at the glacier, touching the glacier, you immediately get this sense of the greatness of nature and the enormity of the planet and the smallness of you.

Our next stop was my favorite of the tour: Reynisfjara Beach. The landscape of Iceland is constantly changing, each new step revealing a new layer. Witness our walk towards the beach...

See that little black and white blur? It's a puffin! You're just going to have to trust me on this because that's as close as I could get!

According to folklore, the columns that stand in the sea are petrified trolls who were caught in the rising sun whilst trying to drag their boat onto the water. Folk tale or no, this part of the ocean is not to be trifled with. Rogue waves have swept some unsuspecting tourists away so take care when you walk on the beach. Maybe it's the slight tinge of danger that makes this place even more beautiful and unspoiled?













After the beach, we headed into the tiny village of Skógar to see the Skógar Folk Museum and the Skógafoss waterfall. I loved the tiny little museum, crowded with Icelandic books, decorative arts and fishing ephemera. The photo on the bottom has an interesting story behind it: settlers in Iceland quickly realized that there weren't enough trees to go around to build houses and boats so they often turned to driftwood washed up up on the shore. Families would mark their names or symbols on pieces of wood to "claim" it.


Our last stops were two beautiful waterfalls, Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss. You can actually walk behind the waterfall at Seljalandsfoss. The land near the falls was so lush and green, covered in moss, lichens and sedum.









In what I was learning was typical Iceland tourism fashion, Seljalandsfoss was a walk-at-your-own-risk affair. You will get wet but you will love it! There are no railings and the rocks can get very slippery so keep little ones close.

Our jaunts out of the city were with Reykjavik Excursions. We thought they were fantastic tours, very informative and able to pack a lot into a day. If you are going for longer than a week, you could definitely rent a car and amble a bit more but you get a lot of bang for your buck on these tours.

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Just a short 5 minute trip from the harbor in Reykjavik, Viðey Island is a tiny little paradise, an oasis of quiet and calm. Everything in Iceland is quiet but Viðey is especially so: you can hear the bumblebees buzzing past your ears, the rustle of the wilflowers in the breeze, your thoughts become magnified and clear.











Aren't Icelandic horses beautiful? I could look at them all day.






There are two art installations on the island. One, by Richard Serra, is a series of basalt columns called Milestones, arranged strategically around the island. Serra’s pillars are intended to frame certain views of Viðey and Reykjavík in the distance. They invite visitors to venture and peer between the pillars like frames, with the island itself as the art. The other, Imagine Peace, by Yoko Ono is a column of light that is only visible later in the year, when it's dark enough to appreciate it.














If the island looks deserted, it felt like that too. Not in a creepy, we-are-alone-in-this-world way but in a magical, this-is-our-own-slice-of-perfect way. There are trails througout and, since most people still to the more traveled paths, we had some whole parts of the place to ourselves. From trails, you can climb down to any of the little beaches, where we found sea urchin shells, cod skeletons and millions of perfectly polished black lava rocks.

There is one ferry that just sort of pops back and forth from Reykjavik all day. Our return trip was pretty crowded so we were left behind for a few minutes on the docks. The water was this magnificent aquamarine, translucent enough to see seaweed and jellfish hovering right below the surface.











If you are planning to visit (and you should!):
-Check out the Viðey Island website for ferry times. I suggest taking the ferry from the old harbor, both for better views and a more convenient pick-up/drop-off.
-Bring snacks and water! There is a restaurant on the island but it's quite pricey.
-Be adventurous! Like most things in Iceland, you can feel free to proceed around the island at your own risk. You can dake a quick walk or an all-day hike as we did. You can also rent a bike or take a horse ride!

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Welcome to Iceland Week

Oh dear, where have I been? For once I have a good answer: Iceland!
The Mr. and I traveled to Iceland at the end of July and we were smitten. In fact, I think my brain is still hovering somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean...in honor of that, I am making this week Iceland week! Each day, I'll post a bit about our trip, show photos of the places we went and even give you some travel tips. Off we go!

Hidden City Part 2

In which my Hidden City Philadelphia photo safari continues!

The Mr. and I had so much fun on our tour that we invited some new friends to join us the next weekend.

First up, Germantown Town Hall, a gorgeous Beaux Arts behemoth that has been abandoned since 1998. One of the most fascinating things about visiting these vacant buildings is the state they are left in, as if everyone who worked there just vanished, leaving behind piles of papers, ancient conputers and cabinets filled with files. What happened when the Town Hall closed it's doors?


The entry of the Germnatown Town Hall is painted an arresting shade of seafoam grey, the great detail of the moldings and domed ceilings a sharp contrast to the bland beurocratic decay we found as we wandered through the halls.












Next stop: The Historical Soicety of Frankford, smack dab in the middle of a particulalry bedraggled neighborhood in Philly that was (unbelievably) a place where the Philadelphia elite summered.  Today the Historical Society is like a museum of Philadelphia curiosities. The artist project, called AV Archaeology, was its own discovery- housed within the glass cases of musical instruments, taxidermy and ephemera, a group of musicians called Data Garden were asked to create soundscapes based on a curiostity that appealed to them. Push a button and suddenly the birds under glass would sing or a victrola would play a tune. It's as if these relics came to life, whispering their histories to us.


We weren't able to take pictures inside most of the space but I snuck in a few bits of text that appealed to me.





The photo above of Globe Dye Works ads got me excited for our next stop. You guessed it: Globe Dye Works! Philly was once a great textile mill city but those are all gone now. Globe Dye Works was recently rehabbed for artist studios but in the boiler room, the memory of the old mill remains. The artist project here, called Oil & Water, by the Dufala Brothers, is a "defunct infrastructure", calling attention to the ephemeral usefulness of all industrial equipment. It's oddly poignant to see all these empty spaces that once thrived, like great invisible dinousaurs.










And last but certainly not least, Hawthorne Hall. Oh Hawthorne Hall, you were magic to my senses but a disaster for my camera to capture. So I only have one picture. Once a clubhouse home first to The Knights of Pythias Union Lodge then later the Irish National Foresters Society, New Light National Baptist Church, New Beginnings Inc., and Christ Ministries, Inc. and replete with theater, church and bar, Hawthorne Hall is now crumbling and forgotten. Until the art collecrtive Rabid Hands got their paws on it. The collective created the "Society of Pythagoras,"  drawing from past and present secret spiritual and fraternal customs to create a mysterious, multi-storied club built on ritual and exploration.



The place was madness, with secret doors and hidden passageways but it was so dark that my poor camera freaked out and gave up. Oh well, you'll have to trust me on this one. It was amazing!

Hidden City Philadelphia {Part 1}

Get ready for a big photo safari; this is going to be a three parter because I have so much to share!!

The Hidden City Festival in Philadelphia is a tour of nine sites throughout the city that normally wouldn't be open to the general public. The tour offers a vista in the vast history of our city, a glimpse into a synagogue built into a 19th century storefront in South Philly, for instance, or a private literary athenaeum on Washington Square.

The festival teamed the historical sites up with contemporary artists, who created work in some way inspired by these places. The result was miraculous, educational and incredible fun. We felt like we were on an amazing treasure hunt the entire day, never sure what would greet us at our next stop but always delighted with what we found. This is the kind of art that makes my heart pound and gives me goosebumps; I live for this stuff.

The Mr. and I were only able to get to five of the nine locations on Sunday but we already bought out tickets for next week to cover the rest (attn locals: this is the last week!).
Here's a little peak into what we saw...





Our first stop was Fort Mifflin/Mud Island, a Revolutionary War fort, later used as a Civil War prison, hidden in the wastelands of Philadelphia, between the airport and treatment facilities. Driving towards the fort, we felt as if we were headed into Area 51. Airplanes flew low overhead, electric fences flanked the road. We passed ominous buildings containing all sorts of secrets. The fort itself is no less spooky with it's many underground tunnels and caves.



But hidden in the wooded marshland was something magical: local artists Ben Neiditz and Zach Webber constructed improvised dwellings along the Delaware River at Fort Mifflin with materials found along the riverbanks.


















(I don't know why this flag was sitting on a table but it sure looked pretty.)

Next stop was the aforementioned synagogue, nestled into an unassuming rowhome in South Philly. Founded in the early 1900s, Shivtei Yeshuron-Ezras Israel synagogue looks like a scrapbook of a past life. It's largely untouched: the paint peels, the floors creak and the stairwells are tiny and dark.














But people still come: an active core group continues to hold regular services at the synagogue--fondly nicknamed the "Little Shul"--and hopes to recruit new members and make necessary repairs in the coming years.









The art project at Shivtei Yeshuron-Ezras Israel is by textile artist Andrew Dahlgren (or ADMK), who invited festival goers to help him create a knitted quilt that will cover the facade of the building for just a few short days. Many of the early synagogue members worked in textile sweatshops or did piecework at home and Philadelphia was once a great textile hub In creating a knit lab on the second floor of the space Dahlgren makes visible a process that has almost disappeared in this city.

(all photos taken by me with a Canon5D, except of course the ones of me, which were taken by my husband)