Winter is coming - and Iceland is the place to experience it! Fantastic country - other-worldly landscapes - this trip offers a thrilling mix of the ancient sagas which tell their own tale of the landscape, the stories of modern life under constant threat of volcanic eruption, geography and geomorphology, wildlife and food. And if you get Kristjn as your tour leader, you will be among the luckiest travellers out there - I've done 9 or so trips with this tour company and am confident he is one of the best, most knowledgeable, resourceful, responsive, hard-working and entertaining leaders out there.
The tour leader was more just a coach driver , didn’t really speak to us or engage with us . It was only due to the other people on the trip that made it so good . Done a few group tours with different companies so I do have something to go by and this top deck tour was nothing like the others , mainly down to the tour leader . The tour itself was good , accommodation was all amazing , the activities on the group where mostly all natural things ( that was free ) but the trip as a whole was quite expensive. The food that was included was good .
Great trip to Western Arctic: Canada and Greenland First two days due to strong winds we were exploring unexpectedly fjord near Kangerlussuaq airport in Greenland. This affected the planned itinerary and expedition team worked hard to resolve various issues. It was a very memorable experience with 18 nights on board of Ultramarine. We have visited places where no other expedition ships have been or only visited on rare occasions. We were lucky with clear skies on the first 6 nights and the Aurora Borealis was better and better on each night. Glaciers, icebergs were nice backdrops on many photos and experiences were enhanced with helicopter flights over magnificent landscapes of Baffin island (Sam Ford fjord especially) and Greenland. Wonderful autumn colours of tundra and rock formations were explored on many hikes in addition to the visits to archeological sites. Introduction to Inuit culture and history was during visits to Itileq, Ilulissat, Uummannaaq, Nipisat island and Pond Inlet. It was enhanced by performances of local artists and visits to Inuit colourful homes. Although the wildlife of Arctic is not so plentiful as in Antarctica, we managed to have wonderful observations of numerous polar bears (12 in one day!), seals and birds. We also followed somewhat the footsteps of Franklin's expedition and reached the Beechey island where the expedition has spent the winter in 1845/46 and where are some graves of the sailors. Expedition team members presented many interesting lectures on history, geology, birds and bears. It was also a nice culinary experience of Greenlandic cuisine: Tundra to Table.