One million points of light

[venta]

Yet another report from the Iceland trip... nearly done, I promise.

The maps in Iceland, as well as the road signs, often feature a particular curly symbol. Initially we thought it was the symbol for "heritage site" or some sort of indication of a natural attraction. However, eventually we deduced that it means "Interesting Thing".

Most tourist attractions are well-signed: small red and white finger posts show the name of the place, the distance in kilometers, and the "Thing of Interest" symbol. However, sometimes the tourist board like to keep you guessing, and merely point out that, if you go down this road, there will be something interesting to look at at the end:



We developed a policy of cheerfully following the Thing-signs:

- Turn left here!
- What's down there ?
- A Thing!
- Ooh, a Thing!

The Things we found were often mentioned in guidebooks, some came as complete surprises. Some - like the dark lake in the volcanic crater (which, despite the efforts of guide books to convince us, was neither eerie nor spooky, just a nice lake) and the gorgeous buttressed valley - would have otherwise been completely unnoticed from the road without the sign. Many Things we saw have already appeared in their own section.

On one occasion we followed a Thing-sign up a steep track to a car park. The car park was sheltered by a lumpy hill - we climbed the hill and found some ferocious winds at the top. Unusually, the car park had no colourful boards explaining the Thing (in five languages, bless 'em). We concluded that the Thing was, perhaps, just the nice view from the top of the lumpy hill. Maybe we should have walked up the suspiciously steep gravel track which we thought was too much for Snorri. (Interestingly, googling for the name I wrote down in my notebook gets no hits - either I spelt it wrongly, or no-one else has worked out what it is, either.)

Another Thing-trip had to be abandoned when we decided (after a kilometer) that the 16km round trip of ruts and potholes would probably finish Snorri (or our nerves) off. I've avoided googling for the place's name; it's pencilled in as something I want to visit to find out its nature should I travel to Iceland again.

As we were completing the mandatory tourist trio of Gullfoss, Geysir and Þingvellir we took a sharp left to follow a Thing-sign. A short track ran to a little car park, which had no explanatory boards (in five languages) and no obvious attractions. Oh well, we thought, maybe just another picnic site. Pulling up to the edge of the car park, the ground fell away sharply to a river, and a wide, impressive waterfall came into view. There was no indication of the fall's name, just an sign showing that the nearby campsite was called Faxi.

I suppose the waterfall has been overshadowed by the much larger Gullfoss and failed to become a tourist attraction; as metame said, you can get blasé about cascades after a while. But Faxi is a contender for Top Waterfall of the trip, just because it was so unexpected and was actually rather more interesting to watch in detail than the thundering curtains of water seen at Gullfoss and Skogarfoss.

Previously: Waterfalls, Volcanic Stuff, Rocks.

Comments

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Mac users go this way :-)

Nabbed from here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_leitch/85626135/in/set-1828053/)

But seriously, the symbol was taken by Apple graphic designer Susan Kare from the Swedish "attractions on a campground" symbol. So now you know (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key). :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. I did think the symbol was familiar from the one (deeply unfriendly) time I used a Mac :)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Þingvellir

Icelandic for (loosely translated, with reference to Wikipedia) "Great wide place full of Things"? Where the Þing-signs more frequent in its vicinity?

[venta.livejournal.com]

"Great wide place full of Things"

Just about, if you accept that Þing translates as "parliament" not "thing" :)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I accept no such Þing.

[edling.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of the idea that interesting stuff should be posted with a sign that just says 'Interesting stuff-this way'. From the sounds of it they've got the whole tourist thing just right around those latitudes...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It's "officially" (in Unicode) called the Place of Interest Sign. But Thing is a much better name. We should have them here.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

... although there would be potential confusion if they had them in the Antarctic, where Thing means "terrifying alien that eats you and assumes your form" -- not such an attraction.