ION Hotel – Where You Can Sleep On the Edge of Two Tectonic Plates. There’re only two places on earth where tectonic plates are visible above sea level “Kenya’s Rift Valley”, and the southwest of Iceland. A Hotel on the Edge of North America and Europe collide, which is the only hotel in the world where you can sleep on the edge of two tectonic plates.
Iceland’s ION Hotel is magnificently positioned at the foot of Mount Hengill on the edge of Þingvellir National Park where luxury accommodation is set in an area where North American and Eurasian plates drift further apart each year. The boiling water bubbles just 25feet underground here, so when it was built on the site of a geothermal power plant, its creators had to use building materials seven times stronger than standard materials used in Reykjavík.
The luxury 45-room hotel is an extension and renovation of the old workers’ quarters of the Nesjavellir geothermal power station, bought in 2011, with the intention of being the only hotel in this isolated and lovely part of the country. ION hotel makes use of Iceland’s exclusive geography in two ways: the bio-thermal energy is harnessed in a remarkable outdoor natural hot spring; and a glass building – “the Northern Lights Bar” – lets guests admire the frequent aurora borealis displays. Owner Sigurlaug Sverrisdóttir, who was born in this region, wanted to see flourish his area, so, he knows very well about extreme weather, and Northern Lights never get old.
She says this respect for Mother Nature is in our blood; our parents and grandparents definitely knew not to mess with her. One month before I was born, in January 1973, there was an eruption on Westman Island, a small island south of Iceland. Overnight almost the entire island was covered in lava.
The rescue to move the islanders to the mainland was successful mainly due to the fact that all of the fishing boats were in the harbor as these were too rough for the locals to fish. The first boat left with habitats to reach the mainland only 30 minutes after the volcano erupted. Even though I was born here, I’m still spellbound by the lava, and moss landscape around the ION hotel.
I still feel astonished when I see the Northern Lights dancing in the sky on one of my late returns from work. Even though you have experienced it numerous times before it is different when you’re outside of the city, it’s much more intense. I also thrive from the energy; I find immense power in Icelandic nature. Hence the reason we chose ION for the hotel’s name.’
Everything about the hotel screams Iceland. Inside, lava, reclaimed wood, and Icelandic wool are used to furnish rooms, bathroom products are made from Icelandic herbs and everything from the bed linen to the restaurant is organic and fair trade, in line with the island’s robust emphasis on preserving its natural beauty.
To experience the tectonic plates up close, the hotel offers snorkeling and diving trips to Silfra, the world’s most easily accessible tectonic fissure, where visibility exceeds 330ft. It is here that you can touch the continents of America and Europe at the same time.
The restaurant – aiming to be Iceland’s first with a Michelin star – serves up such delicacies such as reindeer, onions, spruce and bone marrow, smoked bone marrow ice cream, sea buckthorn, and malt molasses and Icelandic langoustine, locally caught Arctic char, and skyr often called “homemade yogurt”.
Venturing into the wilderness, visitors are offered a range of different activities from horse riding in the mountains around Öflus, fly fishing on Lake Þingvellir, Sólheimajökull glacier tours, rafting, and hot spring hikes. As well as excursions to the Golden Circle south Iceland’s most famed exploring route, which consists of waterfall Gullfoss and the geothermally active valley of Haukadalur.
This valley contains the Strokkur geyser – which erupts every 5 to 10 minutes, guaranteeing an ‘ooh’ or an ‘ahh’ from an ever-captive audience. The restaurant – aiming to be Iceland’s first with a Michelin star – serves up reindeer, Icelandic langoustine, and Arctic char. Read More – Lake Mývatn – A Natural Wonder of Iceland
Source: Dailymail
