Author:

Ms (Leigh) Bella St John aka Luxurious Nomad ~ https://ElegantisVitae.com/

bucketlist

Neither hail nor sleet, but with hot springs, and shipwrecks!

According to the weather man, it was supposed to be fine and partly sunny, partly cloudy…

So, Harry Hyundai set off on a short adventure… only to be caught within about 30 minutes of our departure in the first of two hail storms!

But, weather cleared… and the landscape was stunning!

We then went in search of a ship that had run around years ago that was apparently near a road … somewhere…

…and although the weather man STILL said it was fine but cloudy…

…Harry and I arrived home in the second of two hail storms…

…but all in all, it was a truly lovely outing!

~ Bella

My Viking Un-Birthday

My birthday was on September 13th, but as I was curled up painting and generally unplugged from the world, the first time I went down to the restaurant for dinner after my birthday was a couple of days later… and little did I know I would get gifts, a cake with sparkler, and a Viking serenade!

The view from the window was simply lovely – watching the sun go down and the world float by…

…and then………

…and even a lovely present so I can bring some Icelandic water with me – complete with my name on it!

I feel so incredibly blessed…

If ever you come to Iceland, you just must stay here (Hotel Viking) – they have made me feel like family.

~ Bella

My Lovely Birthday in Iceland

I am in Iceland at present, and I was in quite the quandary about how to celebrate my birthday weekend this year…

Would I:

Go to somewhere like the Blue Lagoon?
Stay in one of those ice hotels or similar?
Go on another road trip?

While all those options and more sounded interesting, the fact is that I am having such a lovely time basically doing what I am doing, I couldn’t think of anything more lovely than soaking in the private geothermal hot tub, resting, reading, painting, and basically doing nothing but more of what I have been doing!

Then, on Saturday night I received a message on my phone…

…and yes, I did see somewhat of an aurora – very feint and wasn’t able to catch on camera, but it was like God was swirling luminous green translucent paint… So beautiful! So, that was an incredible gift for my birthday!

Sunday (my birthday) I totally unplugged…

I also bought myself some paints and brushes… I had brought a set of pencils, coloured pencils, and pens with me, but really felt like painting (not that I am any Rembrandt!) – and took inspiration for a couple of them from the photos I took on my trip right around the island.

They are mixed media (on plain copy paper – as needs must…) of acrylic paint, pencil, pen, and metallic paint pen.

They are no great works of art, but I am going to give them to the hotel as a thank you for taking such good care of me.

…I really should have finished off the grassy area at the bottom left, but I was getting tired of all those individual strokes of grass leaves, that by the time I was down to the bottom of the painting, my inspiration had deserted me (but I will finish it off before I give it to Unnur)…

…so, I decided to go a little more abstract… (but with another of my favourite subjects!)

…and for my reading pleasure…

…and one can easily tell from the state of Mr Talbot’s book that this is not my first reading – nor is this the book’s first journey with me!

I also invested time journalling what I want for my life in this next year…

I had a haircut and treatment, and a facial…

I rested and slept and had a lovely bed-picnic…

I started learning Spanish…

I listened to music by candlelight…

I spent time in my suite that has three huge windows that overlook the harbour and the park, doing nothing but watching the world float by…

…and in general had the most glorious of birthdays!

PS: then I had the additional gift of receiving all my birthday wishes and messages on Monday morning when I plugged back in again! Feeling so blessed!

~ Bella

Who needs the Blue Lagoon?

Yes, the Blue Lagoon may be a natural wonder, but it also comes with astronomical entry fees and gazillions of people…

So, who needs the Blue Lagoon when one has one’s own private geothermal hot tub?!

It was like entering another world…

Magical!

This place (Hotel Viking) is not only gloriously lovely, but the staff have embraced me like one of the family.

I feel so very, very blessed…

~ Bella

Borgarbyggð

Just over an hour north of where I am staying is the lovely peninsula of Borgarbyggð – but while the area is lovely, the main reason for this little adventure was to check off another of my Walter Mitty locations… Papa Johns.

Scene from the movie:

…and in fact it is a bakery!

After some searching, I managed to find Hlíðartúnshúsin – restored traditional Icelandic turf houses.

Ah, the rare Domesticus Snow Leopard!

He was camera-shy…

I managed to find the perfect place to curl up in Harry and read for a while…

Btw, if you don’t know about this painting, it is not by Rembrandt – but is instead the result of high resolution scans of all of his paintings, AI processing of the data, and the painting itself printed with a 3D printer to mimic the actual style of brushstrokes etc used by the real master.

…and when one considers this was produced back in 2016, one wonders about the future of ‘creative’ expression…

Anyway, the scenery was much too lovely to ponder anything so challenging for too long…

The mountain in front of me looked as though it had newly erupted…

We have such glorious sunsets here…

~ Bella

Iceland’s Westman Islands

Although it was rainy and misty when I left home, by the time Harry and I made it to the main island, it was brilliant sunshine…

This type of sight anywhere else would be thought of as pollution – here it is merely steam…

I always think these car ferries look like crazy parrots with funky beaks…

It was funny, while waiting to board, a woman came over to me and started asking questions about the island and for directions etc… Why is that funny (apart from the obvious that I am not exactly in a position to answer her effectively)? Because almost everywhere I go, someone comes up to me at some point to ask for ‘local’ information – and even funnier here because I hardly look Scandinavian! 🙂

…and so we leave the mainland, and head over to the largest of the Westman Islands, Heimaey.

Btw, you will probably notice some ‘lights in the sky’ in the following photos – no, they are not my alien relatives coming to get me… The back deck was closed so I was inside, and the lights are reflections from the interior of the ferry…

Heimaey, that translates to Home Island, is 4 nautical miles from mainland Iceland. At 13.4 square kilometres, it is the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago, and the largest and most populated island off the Icelandic coast.

Interesting, the wool on these sheep looks entirely different from that of the sheep on the East coast of Iceland…

…and although I was just freewheeling around the island with no real destination, I didn’t think I had travelled far enough to find Texas!

Even the trash cans here are pretty!

I went in search of puffins (where I didn’t have to walk too far from the car parking area), but alas… I did, however, find a massive seagull nesting area!