HAPPY WOMEN´S DAY!
Today is Konudagur, Women´s Day, in Iceland. It is the first day of the Icelandic month of Goa, a month in the traditional Icelandic calendar. Goa is the second to last of the winter months and comes after the Thorri. Here you can read about Thorri.
Konudagur is not a recent invention. The word was first used in the 1800s but the tradition to celebrate it dates much further than that, even back to the ancient Nordic calendar. Konudagur traditionally always falls on a Sunday and it marks the time when the days (finally!) start to get visibly longer and the weather (hopefully!) getting milder.
Nowadays, Konudagur is celebrated in a way like Mother´s Day or Valentine´s Day, with people taking time to appreciate the women in their lives. Often the women are brought flowers, taken out to dinner or pampered in some way.
But even though Konudagur is the official day in Iceland for pampering all the wonderful women in our lives, we really do appreciate women all year round. Iceland is consistently voted as one of the best places in the world for gender equality.
The King granted Icelandic women the right to vote on 19th of June 1916. They first exercised this right in elections held in 1916. The first woman to be elected and actually sit as a member of the Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, was Ingibjorg H. Bjarnason. Today, 30 women are members of Althingi, one of them, Katrin Jakobsdottir, being the Prime Minister. Iceland had the world’s first democratically elected female president in 1980.
We would recommend that you do something romantic if you are in Iceland, this time of year or any time of the year. How about a Heli Happy Hour tour? On this round trip tour you take in breath-taking views of Reykjavik as you fly over the city and land on one of the summits surrounding the city, for the photo opportunity of a life-time. We pop up a bottle of sparkling wine while enjoying the scenic views of the coastal plain panorama, the cityscape of Reykjavik and distant mountains.
The Essential Iceland tour is an extensive tour that embraces the highlights of Icelandic nature in an unforgettable journey. We fly over Thingvellir, Geysir, the spectacular Gullfoss waterfall, geothermal power plants, Mt. Hekla, the rhiolite mountains of Landmannalaugar, the geothermal area Hrafntinnusker, volcanic sand beaches and much more. This is truly an experience you will not forget!
Another romantic thing to do in Iceland is to expierence nature from its core by bathing in the geothermal baths at Krauma. It offers five relaxing natural geothermal baths, a cold tub to get your blood circulation going, two calming saunas and a relaxation room where you can rest by the fireplace while listening to soothing music. Krauma Restaurant serves Icelandic cuisine from the freshest local farm produced ingredients. Relax in the comfortable environment of the restaurant while enjoying the spectacular view of Europe’s most powerful hot spring. The bar offers a wide selection of drinks and snacks and is well suited to relax and unwind at the end of the day.
Even though Konudagur is officially an Icelandic celebration, we do hope people all over the world appreciate the women in their lives today, and every day!
