Iceland’s fast flowing rivers have cut through the landscape to produce thousands of ravines and waterfalls. Everywhere you look, small cascades sparkle in the sunshine.
Perhaps the best known is Gullfoss with its double cascade falling 32m. On a sunny afternoon a rainbow arcs through the spray. There were plans to harness the flow for hydroelectric power but fortunately these were abandoned in face of strong protests led by the now legendary Sigrίđur Tómasdóttir.
The waterfalls are steeped in legend and folklore, none more so than Gođafoss. The story has it that around 1000 AD the lawspeaker Ţoreir, when returning home, threw pagan symbols into the falls, marking his conversion to Christianity.
In many places erosion has exposed the underlying rock structure and at Svartifoss in Skaftafell National Park, huge, perfectly formed, black basalt columns, frame the falling water
Detifoss (44m high), in the Jökulsárgljúfur National Park, must be one of Iceland’s most spectacular falls and is the most powerful in Europe.
