Þingvellir in Bláskógabyggð

You're standing at Þingvellir, in southwest Iceland. The name means assembly fields: the fields where the thing, the people's assembly, used to meet. Look around. You're in a wide rift valley between walls of rock. This is where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart, and you can see it in the deep cracks and fissures all over the landscape. The biggest one is Almannagjá, the gorge of all people, a real canyon.