The Artisan Travel Blog

My love of Iceland - Part 1: A long-held dream

Dawn Rawlings

Friday, 22 August 2014

My very first memory of Iceland is seeing it on a travel programme as a child and being completely captivated. I couldn't quite tell you why – I think it planted itself in my 6 year old mind as this big frozen country – a mystical, otherworldly place in the middle of the sea that seemed so far from and so unlike anything else.

As strange as it sounds to most of my friends and family, I have never been a fan of hot places and whilst I appreciate a bit of sunshine every now and then it's the cold that I enjoy the most (I'm one of those people that enjoys when the English two week summer is done and I can get out my woolly jumpers again...) so Iceland, even by just its name, was a place that called out to me.

Since then I always wanted to visit and it was forever in the back of my mind as a sort of bucket list place that I knew I wanted to visit when I was a grown up (as far off as that seemed at the time).

Eyjafjallajokull

By the time I was a grown up, well 26 at least, I had worked for Artisan for 18 months and had gained a whole heap of knowledge about Iceland. I learnt that it wasn't actually cold all the time (the country enjoys rather long days of summer and indeed the Midnight Sun), I learnt that it was also home to a pretty endless variety of geological wonders, I learnt that there are so many activities you can do there, mostly however, I learnt that a childhood obsession to visit a country will never leave you!

Luckily I got to go in November 2013 on a week-long trip across the island with my colleague Amy and I could not have been giddier with excitement.

There was a slight concern that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, having been looking forward to it for over 20 years, but luckily it very much did, if not more so...

Read 3398 times Last modified on Tuesday, 20 February 2018

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