RSS feed from icelandreview.com 
Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
more
Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
more
Organizers of SnowGathering, an adult film industry conference, decided to cancel the conference yesterday, which was to be held in Iceland next month, after the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel canceled their bookings.
“If we weren’t going to commit a crime in this country, then why should we have been outlawed? This doesn’t make any sense,” Cristina Ponga, a SnowGathering organizer, told mbl.is.
She added that she suspected the owners of the hotel had subdued to pressure and that she did not expect any other hotel to welcome the SnowGathering attendees.
“FreeOnes.com cannot support or understand the decision taken by the hotel since we have done our utmost to comply with all the wishes and demands requested by the hotel after the whole media explosion,” Ponga wrote in a statement on SnowGathering’s website.
“Legal assistance has been sought in this matter since FreeOnes.com believes the cancellation and the consequent financial losses (both material and time-wise) have been carried out without any legitimate or legal grounds,” she added.
Director of the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel Hrönn Greipsdóttir said revoking the decision of receiving the SnowGathering attendees had been necessary due to opposition from the public and authorities, as Fréttabladid reports.
“It is clear that those who work in the tourist industry here are faced with difficulties if they have to evaluate and categorize tourists who come here even if nothing illegal has occurred,” said Erna Hauksdóttir, managing director of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association.
RÚV reported yesterday that guests staying at the Radisson SAS Saga Hotel can purchase access to pornographic material that they can watch in their hotel rooms and raised the question as to why guests are not allowed to talk about pornography.
Greipsdóttir said offering guests the opportunity to watch adult films in their hotel room is a service offered at all hotels in the Radisson SAS hotel chain. But now Saga Hotel is considering whether it can be exempt from that rule, she added.
“We are very satisfied with this result,” Gudrún Jónsdóttir, spokesperson for Stígamót (the Icelandic Counseling and Information Center for Survivors of Sexual Violence) told Morgunbladid.
Katrín Anna Gudmundsdóttir, spokesperson for the Feminist Movement in Iceland, said: “We feel this is a great victory for the liberation of the sexes and it is very good to see the nation unite in rejecting pornography.”
Click here to read more about SnowGathering and here to read a statement from a conference attendee.
The human being will be on display for the first time in its natural environment in the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo next weekend. Visitors can observe three men and one woman in a cage after 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.
more
The formal Videy island swim took place yesterday and there were three participants, two men and one woman, Thórdís Hrönn Pálsdóttir, who is the first woman to participate in the Videy swim since 1959.
more
The Environment Agency intends to investigate whether the Heath Protection Authority handled the situation in Eskifjördur, east Iceland, in the correct manner when contaminated water from a trawler was carried into the town’s drinking water system.
more
One hundred and forty million cubic meters of ash is estimated to have fallen in Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull last spring. That excludes all the ash that fell into the ocean and in other countries.
more
The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
more
REVIEWS
Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
more
On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
more
Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
more
