Oli – Page 2 – Nearly Neutral Travel

Four seasons in three days along Iceland’s west coast

After landing at Keflavik airport, our plan was to spend a couple of days in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, before setting off on the first leg of our road trip along Iceland’s west coast. From Reykjavík, this leg took us past the Friðheimar tomato farm, along the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in Þingvellir National Park, and ended up at the tip of the volcanic Snæfellsnes peninsula. As promised, Iceland delivered nearly four seasons of weather in almost as many days! 😬

However, our plans almost went out of the window when our outbound flight was cancelled, but we managed to rebook onto a similarly-timed flight the next day. To be honest, we really should have booked this flight anyway, as it gave us an extra day to get ourselves sorted ahead of our departure. Alex seemed to quite enjoy his first trip to 30,000 ft, and fortunately he’s no stranger to starting his day at 4:30am.

Reykjavík ☀️

We landed at Iceland’s international airport in Keflavik, picked up our car, and made a beeline for Reykjavík. While the journey had only taken 8 hours from door to door, we’d already produced nearly a full load of laundry, so thank goodness we’d booked an apartment with a washing machine – travelling with a baby is no joke!

We were so fortunate to arrive in Reykjavík on a cloudless day, with the autumn sun showing off the city’s multi-coloured buildings in their best light. All roads in Reykjavík seem to radiate out from its most recognisable landmark – the Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran church. Its striking design is somewhat circular in origin – the church facade is intended to resemble the columnar basalt rock formations found across Iceland, which themselves are often referred to as “organ pipe” rock formations.

We enjoyed both the church’s exterior from ground level and the views over the city from the top of its clock tower. I say “we”, but Alex slept through the whole experience, including the deafening bells which chimed every 15 minutes!

Reykjavík has every municipal service that you’d expect from a big city (e.g. an airport, a national museum, a large hospital etc.), but their close proximity and perfectly groomed appearance gave Reykjavík an almost a toy-town feel when viewed from above. For example, it would take just 18 minutes to walk from the city centre to the domestic airport!

Friðheimar tomato farm & Þingvellir National Park 💨 🌧

From Reykjavík, we took a significant detour east to the Friðheimar tomato farm for lunch. This farm manages to grow tomatoes in greenhouses all year round, despite Iceland’s dark and cold winters. The greenhouses are kept warm by geothermally-heated water which is circulated in pipes, and the greenhouses are lit using electricity generated by hydroelectric and geothermal power plants. One staff member told us that the whole operation uses as much energy as a town of 7,000 people, but, as she casually added, “energy in Iceland is free”. While this might not quite be true, they certainly have no shortage of renewable energy, and I since learned that Iceland even has plans to share its energy with the UK via a subsea eletricity interconnector.

With our bellies full from the tomato-themed menu (including all-you-can-eat tomato soup and the most incredible bread buffet) we turned back towards the ringroad, stopping in Þingvellir National Park en route, which lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the meeting of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.

Despite the inclement weather, we braved the walk between the plates, which continue to separate by 25 cm each year. While Alex has been less than impressed with his new car seat in the hire car, he didn’t seem to mind getting battered by the gale-force wind and rain as we emerged on the crest of the ridge.

Snæfellsnes Peninsula 🌦

Our last stop on Iceland’s west coast was the Snæfellsnes peninsula, which juts out west towards Greenland and culminates dramatically in the Snæfellsjökull volcano.

Since climbing the volcano is a serious affair and only possible with a guide, we opted for a more leisurely stroll through a lava field and down to a black sand beach.

The beach was littered with rusted debris from an English trawler that had wrecked on the rocks nearly 60 years ago. Somehow, an Icelandic rescue team from a neighbouring village managed to save five of the nineteen crew from the icy waters below.

We left the peninsula via a 53 km gravel road (!) which crossed the ridge and followed the north coast inland towards a farmhouse beside Lake Hakadalsvatn, our lodging for the night and final stop before heading towards Iceland’s wild north.

Southeastern & Central Europe round up 🇦🇱🇲🇪🇷🇸🇸🇮🇦🇹🇩🇪

The final leg of our journey saw us travel 3,270 km over land and sea from Corfu to London. After taking a ferry to the seaside resort of Sarandë, we made two further stops in Albania to climb Gjirokastër’s hilltop castle and explore a Cold War bunker in Tirana. We then crossed the border into Montenegro, where we swam in the Morača River in Podgorica and took a day trip to the old town of Budva. From Podgorica, we hopped aboard the Bar-Belgrade railway to enjoy one of Europe’s most spectacular railways on the way to the capital of Serbia. Next, we paused for only two nights in lovely Ljubljana en route to Austria, where we reenacted the Sound of Music in Salzburg and took a hike in the mountains above Innsbruck. We spent our last four nights in the beer gardens surrounding Munich and Cologne, before visiting Brussels for the day and taking an evening Eurostar back to London.

Carbon 🚌🚆

Our journeys from Corfu to London by ferry, bus and train emitted only 196 kgCO2e, while a direct fight for the same route would have emitted more than three times this amount of carbon. On the graph below, our carbon emissions are barely visible next to those from flights we’ve taken to cross seas and oceans, although this is partly because the total for this leg was spread across seven countries.

I’ve rounded up the total emissions from our whole trip to the nearest tonne of CO2 and purchased one last carbon offset from Gold Standard’s Climate+ Portfolio. In this case, we’ve helped fund a small scale Rural Methane Digesters Project in Guizhou Province, China. In total, we’ve now spent $210 (USD) offsetting the carbon from our travels.

Overall, our journey around the globe emitted 13.5 tCO2e. For comparison, a return flight for two people from London to Auckland via Doha would emit 11 tCO2e. Given that we were away for nearly 13 months, I think we got pretty good mileage out of a similar amount of carbon.

Although we travelled less than half our total distance in the air, our flights made up 83% of our carbon emissions. This statistic has further convinced us that the easiest way to reduce our carbon footprint from travel is by minimising flying. Almost any other form of transport is better for the climate, with the exception of cruise ships. The only way we could have further reduced our travel footprint would have been to alter our route in order to fly fewer kilometres, such as turning around before crossing the Pacific Ocean and heading back to London over land through Asia and the Middle East. Of course, this comes with its own geopolitical challenges and closed borders…

Cost 💰

The final leg of our journey added six new bars to our cost tracker and updated Greece’s total (which we also visited on the first leg of our trip). The Balkan countries (Albania, Montenegro and Serbia) were all relatively affordable despite our peak-summer timing, while Slovenia, Austria and Germany were predictably more expensive. On top of this, our visit to Cologne clashed with the annual Gamescom festival, which helped push prices up even further!

We were surprised to see France and Spain top the table of daily expenditure as they felt relatively affordable compared to New Zealand and the United States, for instance. However, a large chunk of our spending in these two countries was on transport, and indeed on closer inspection we travelled faster through France and Spain than nearly any other country. On average, we travelled about 600 km per day in both countries, making full use of their high-speed rail and long-distance coach networks. In contrast, we averaged only 285 km per day in New Zealand.

Cats 🐈

All three Balkan countries were great for cat spotting, with Montenegro swooping in to pinch the bronze medal from Malaysia right at the last minute. We had less success in Slovenia, Austria and Germany, which offered poor cat value for our Euro spend.

Time for some animal awards…

🏅Most polite breakfast companion

Just look at this chap. Wouldn’t you share your pancakes with him?

🏅Best reason for putting our entire travel day at risk

We were already a little late for our bus from Serbia to Slovenia, but these kittens still stopped us in our tracks. The more we looked, the more kittens we saw emerging from behind the fence. Cute! Thankfully, we just about caught the bus, but if we hadn’t, we could have just returned to hang out with the kittens, I suppose.

🏅Spikiest dinner guest

Sara was delighted when we found the hoggy source of all the rustling that had punctuated our dinner in Podgorica.

🏅Overall winner; worldwide cat category

After counting 1,839 cats across 27 countries, Thomas will always be our #1.

And that’s our last round up! Sara and I spent our final day of the trip in a sunny square in Brussels recounting each of our highlights of the whole trip – coming soon!

🎶 The hills are alive with the sound of…beer halls 🍻

From Slovenia, we crossed into Austria to spend a couple of days re-enacting The South Of Music in Salzburg, before taking the train to Innsbruck to go hiking in the Nordkette mountains.

Our coach from Ljubljana to Salzburg hit a few delays en route, but this did at least give us a good amount of time to savour the views as we crossed the Austrian Alps. We finally arrived at the bus station (5 km south of Salzburg city centre) with only half an hour until reception closed at our guest house (5 km north of Salzburg city centre). With no other option, we hopped in a taxi to make the journey. It quickly became clear that our taxi driver wasn’t going to let us down, and what followed was a mildly terrifying but ruthlessly efficient journey on two wheels through the city centre. We finally screeched into the drive ready to check in with 5 minutes to spare.

Our guesthouse was a quintessentially-Austrian chalet in a quiet and sunny suburban neighbourhood. It seemed to have all the essential features – the guesthouse name written in huge letters, a large sloping roof, window shutters and a borderline-excessive number of window boxes.

We were excited to be visiting Salzburg, not just for its beautiful old town centre, but also because Salzburg is where much of The Sound Of Music was filmed (if you’re not a fan of the movie, you’ll have a lot in common with me! You might want to skip down to the first roast pork photo below). Anyway, Sara is a fan so we’d booked onto a cycle tour that would take us around many of the key locations, starting in the gardens behind Mirabell Palace, through which Maria dances in the crescendo of Do-Re-Mi.

Next up was Residenzplatz, where Maria playfully splashes the horse statues in the fountain while singing I Have Confidence.

Later in the movie, Nazis are also shown marching through this square, and although the production company had permission to film this scene, the local authorities changed their minds right at the last minute. Apparently, when the producers suggested they could instead use real footage of Salzburg citizens cheering the arrival of the Nazis, the authorities had a sudden change of heart and allowed them to film after all.

Our tour then took a short break in Kapitelplatz, where we indulged in two quintessentially Austrian refreshments – an Apfelstrudel (apple pie) and a bottle of Radler (shandy), which literally means “cyclist”. It was the perfect pick-me-up and refreshment on an already seriously hot day!

We then climbed the hill to Nonnberg Abbey (where Maria studies to become a nun), with a beautiful view over Innsbruck’s rooftops. Legend has it that the filming crew cut out one of the bars of the metal gate (to Sara’s right) without permission to make space for a camera. At least they had the good manners to weld it back again, and the welding scars are still visible to this day as proof!

Our tour continued through the beautifully sun-drenched meadows surrounding Salzburg to our final stop – the two von Trapp houses. These buildings were used as the front and back of the von Trapp house in the film, and although they look very different in real life, no one seems to notice in the movie.

To recharge after our cycling adventure we headed to Augustiner Braustübl, a monastery-brewery founded in 1621 with a 1,400-seater (!) beer garden. Inside is huge vaulted beer hall, surrounded by a food court selling traditional beer snacks. Our favourite was definitely the kümmelbraten – slow roasted pork belly with caraway seeds, a staple across Austria. This came with a side of grated horseradish, which wasn’t quite up my street but Sara made short work of it!

Kümmelbraten and grated horseradish
To buy a beer, we had to first pay at the till and pick up a tankard…
… then rinse the tankards in cold water and handed them over to a chap in a yellow shirt along with a receipt to have them filled
Success!

We returned to our guesthouse to find a local festival in full swing just down the road. Having been cancelled for the past five years through a combination of global pandemic and poor weather, these Salzburgers had donned their lederhosen and dirndl and were in the mood to celebrate. The following morning, a tractor pulling a brass band trailer arrived outside our guesthouse at breakfast and we were treated to private performance of a few numbers. We just couldn’t work out whether this was all part of the festival, or if it was a way to apologise for all the noise last night!

The next stop on our Austrian detour was Innsbruck, a city with a medieval old town nestled in a valley between the Karwendel Alps, and the Patscherkofel and Serles mountains, which were the fictional location of the Chalet School books, one of Sara’s favourite childhood series. Actually, walking the narrow pedestrianised streets reminded me more of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, with every building’s bay window protruding into the street, and every business’ sign hanging further across the thoroughfare. Talk about atmospheric!

Innsbruck’s proximity to the mountains is no exaggeration, with a funicular and cable car combo whisking hikers from the city centre to 2,000 m elevation in less than 20 minutes. However, this route came with a hefty price tag, so instead we opted to take a bus to Hungerburg and set off on a short hike through the forest. Even as we got off the bus, the view across Innsbruck and to the mountains beyond was already spectacular.

The first half of our route climbed steeply through the trees, which provided some much-needed shade from the summer sun. Every so often, the trees would give way to a clearing under the path of the cable car, leaving a wild meadow to take hold, framing more stunning views down to the city.

Just beyond our highest point we arrived at Umbrüggler Alm – an immaculately kept mountain restaurant with an incredible sun terrace. It seemed like such an unlikely place for a modern restaurant, given that it was nowhere near a cable car station and there were no paved roads leading to or from it. Sadly, the restaurant wasn’t open on the day of our visit, so I hope they didn’t mind us resting in their deckchairs while we enjoyed the view from the terrace.

The beauty of all this exercise was that we could we could visit yet another beer garden with little-to-no guilt. This time we tried out Siftskeller, a traditional Tyrolean restaurant with a large courtyard on the edge of Innsbruck’s old town. Once again the roast pork was our favourite, although this time it was served with a generous ladle of onion and carrot gravy, sauerkraut (natürlich!), and a pretzel dumpling that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in an English stew. Not exactly heatwave-appropriate food, but it was just what we needed after a tiring hike!

With our visit to Austria already coming to an end, we set our sights on our final country – Germany – before our return to the UK.