Christina here. When I planned out my current Viking time travel series a couple of years ago, it seemed like a great idea to have one of them set in Iceland. This massive island in the North Atlantic was more or less empty before the Vikings arrived to settle there around 860-870 AD. As my story took place in 875 AD, it made sense to have my characters be part of those first groups of settlers.
Of course, this would necessitate a research trip to Iceland – I’d wanted to visit for a long time so great excuse, right? Then Covid happened. For 18 months I waited to see if travelling would be possible again, and in the meantime, I had to work on my story using only information gleaned from books, travel blogs and other peoples’ remembrances. Definitely not ideal!
By early June this year, I had less than a month to finalise the edits for the book (TEMPTED BY THE RUNES) when at last the borders opened and travel was allowed! I jumped at the chance and with my husband quickly organised a trip which, despite hassle with paperwork and tests, turned out to be magical, so I thought I’d tell you about our journey. Here’s the first part:-
The main Icelandic airport, Keflavik, is about an hour’s drive away from the capital Reykjavik. First impressions of Iceland were of vast skies and a strange, flat and rather barren landscape with volcanic rock covered in moss, but with mountains in the middle. One of them, Fagradalshraun, recently erupted, but by the time we were there, all you could see was a cloud of smoke in the distance.
