Iceland: Is boring the new beautiful?

Anybody following #Iceland on social media will have been bombarded with posts trumpeting ‘Spectacular images!’, ‘Unmissable nature!’ or ‘Beautiful landscapes!’, decorated with impossibly pretty, other-worldly shots of the Northern Lights, crashing waterfalls and shimmering ice formations.

Spectacular landscapes – that’s kind of Iceland’s thing.

But for blogger Simon Litton, a Brussels-based Brit who visited Iceland for the first time with his family in August, the beauty of Iceland runs deeper that the spectacular vistas of places like Jökulsárlón and Þingvellir.

In his words, it was the “quieter, more subtle landscapes” that caught his eye for beauty and had him reaching for his camera.

In his thought-provoking blog post entitled ‘ Moss and Moonscapes ’, Simon invites us to take time out from the jaw-droppingly magnificent and stop a moment to appreciate the essential beauty of the desolate, the barren and the endless.

Simon’s photos feature views of Iceland which some might describe as dull – rocky roads, mossy fields and grey days. Certainly no bubbling lava, gushing geysers or flocks (is that the right word?) of photogenic puffins.

The spectacular beauty of Iceland’s famous natural sites is undeniable. But, according to Simon, so is the understated charm of the country’s ‘boring bits’.

“This was the bit of Iceland I’ll remember,” Simon writes. “Not so dramatic perhaps, but unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been”