…toil and trouble. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble.

Hveragerdi Village has been an exurb of Reykjavik since the late 1920s.  It’s close to thermal springs and it became home for people who did not need to go into the capital every day to work but still wanted to be close, artists, writers, craftsmen, and horticulturists.  Land was less expensive than in Reykjavik, heat was free, water from the springs, and you could use the water to heat greenhouses and in the long summer light grow produce.  When Suzi and I were there in 1968 they made a big thing about bananas growing in Iceland.  Now it is mostly tomatoes and cucumbers they talk about.  Today it’s close to the Hellisheidi geothermal power station and the nearby carbon recapture plant.  We had a pleasant lunch at a resort in Hveragerdi on our way to visit the power station and a walk through town, although we did not get to the art museum featuring some of those artists who had settled here.

The real attractions of the area are the vents and hot pools at Hveradölum where the underworld meets our world.  One thing that struck me were the colors, especially how green the grass grows in the hot water near the springs.

I want to show more than pics could, These short (10 secs. each) clips show bubbling, and you can hear the sounds, sometimes bubbling, sometimes a hiss, often the wind.

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