My Personal Blog - Sarada Ramani

The famous reindeer ride - for me personally it was not very exciting but it was a tick off one item in the bucket list. You sit on the sledge driven by a reindeer which is controlled by a official driver in another sledge in the front and go around the marked track for about 10 minutes. So all of us had taken a ride!!!

Roveinami and the Santa claus village - here is the info Rovaniemi is the official hometown of Santa Claus, whose most famous resident can be found every day of the year at Santa Claus Village in the Arctic Circle, where more than 500,000 Christmas friends from every corner of the world visit each year. As the location of Korvatunturi, Santa's original domicile, is a precisely guarded secret, h e decided to set up his own base to accommodate all the visitors, Rovaniemi and the Arctic Circle in 1985. Rovaniemi received Santa's official hometown status in 2010 . Santa Claus Village: how it all started Rovaniemi was almost completely destroyed during World War II. In 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, visited Rovaniemi to see how reconstruction is progressing. He wanted to visit the Arctic Circle, eight kilometers north of the center, where the Rovaniemi authorities rushed to build a cottage for a guest of honor. The cott

Next item was crossing the artic circle yes you can officially cross into the artic circle here in Santa claus village What is the Arctic Circle? The Arctic Circle is the latitude of the globe that runs north of the Equator of 66 ° 33′45.9 ″. It is the southernmost latitude, where the sun stays 24 hours above or below the horizon - these phenomena are called the midnight sun in summer and the c amel in the winter. The Arctic region begins with the Arctic Circle, and within its borders there are several cities larger than Rovaniemi, but none of them are in the immediate vicinity of the Arctic Circle In Rovaniemi, the Arctic Circle passes eight kilometers north of downtown Santa Claus Village, where it is clearly marked.

Wednesday the 13th at Lapland - Rovaniemi after a good breakfast started out to Santa Claus Village - A day filled with fun and activities. First was to visit Santa Claus and take photos with him. Every body was curious to know his age. It was exciting to see the real (!!!) Santa Claus . But only the official photographer is allowed to take the photos. And of course it costs you a lot if euros.

Southern peninsula region of Iceland was our next stop. It is a desolate region of lava rocks covered with snow but with a lot of geothermal springs which gives the country the ability to generate power using this hot water not only for domestic consumption but also for industrial plants. Southern Peninsula(Icelandic: Suðurnes) Reykjanesskagi(pronounced [ˈreiːcanɛsˌskaiːjɪ]) or Reykjanes Peninsu la is a region in southwest Iceland. It was named after Reykjanes, the southwestern tip of Reykjanesskagi. The region has a population of more than 25,000 (2018) and is one of the more densely populated parts of the island. The administrative centre is Keflavík, which had 7,000 residents when it merged with the nearby town of Njarðvík and Hafnir several years ago to create Reykjanesbær, which now (feb 2019) is the largest settlement outside the Greater Reykjavík area; on 1 January 2013 the town had a population of 14,231, but 17,805 in 2018. The region is the location of Keflav

Our next stop was the bridge between the 2 continental plates - Eurasian and north American tectonic plates. So if you cross the bridge you are geographically in America but without Visa. It was -2° freezing and quite windy though there is a path. The path was covered with sleet and was quite slippery. The wind was so strong that we were getting pushed. A glove was dropped and was blown  so far away in a jiffy. Probably in a better weather conditions we would have enjoyed the whole thing but even in the bad weather was happy to see the fissure between the two plates. Here is the info about it The Bridge between Continents or Midlina is a 15 meter (50 ft) footbridge in the Reykjanes Peninsula spanning a gaping rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. ... These major tectonic plates drift apart by the Earth's forces, few centimeters each year

Tuesday the 12th March - we were supposed to visit the  Seljalandsfoss - rated as the First Most beautiful waterfalls in the World - But nature had its own plans for us. When we came down to have our breakfast and then get on to the bus for the road trip to the falls and Vik - the black sand beach - we were so thrilled to see snow fall.  Few of us got outside to take photos of the falling snow not realizing  that this is going to change our plans. Our guide came in and said there is a storm advisory and the road which leads to the waterfalls will be closed by 1200 noon and so she said we cant undertake that journey but said we can go the southern way to see few things. So we went sight seeing in the southern direction passing through the keflavik airport.   What a day it was snowy, windy and very very cold.    Our first stop was a near a small building which houses the replica of the Viking boat which was used to cross the Atlantic ocean to reach United States much before Colu