From Vik: Solheimajokull Easy Level 3hr Glacier Hike

This tour is for anyone looking to experience one of the earth's natural wonders. You'll meet your guide in the Sólheimajökull parking lot and then go to the ice, enjoying a brisk 30-minute walk to get your blood flowing. (The glacier was once closer to the lot, but warming weather and its movement have caused it to recede into the distance.)

Sólheimajökull is a part of Mýrdalsjökull, one of the biggest glaciers in Europe, and it was featured in detail in the 2012 documentary "Chasing Ice," an award-winning investigation of climate change.

Once you reach the ice, you'll be given plenty of time to marvel at the eerie silence and feeling of isolation, as if you and your fellow hikers are alone in a vast, empty world of ice and snow. You'll view millennia-old blue ice created when oxygen bubbles were trapped in the snow and compressed into the ice by the enormous weight of the glacier pressing down upon it. You'll also be able to gaze deep into a glacier moulin, a vertical shaft like a well that can go to the bottom of the glacier.

What's down there? The ice cap sits on top of the mighty Katla volcano, one of Iceland's largest and most active volcanoes. On a clear day, you may also see Eyjafjallajökull, another glacier to the east that famously brought European air traffic to a halt in 2010 when its eruption filled the sky with fire and ash.