My Trip To Iceland

Iceland was the last stop on my 2018 European travels.  It’s been so much fun reliving my spring adventure with all of you via the blog.  Nate remembered the little details on this one so I asked him to write it out for me.

During the flight from Belfast to Iceland, we were in or above the clouds almost the entire time.  The last 20 minutes of the flight things cleared up a little and we caught a glimpse of the island. Given that it was still early April snow covered most of the island.  There were some areas along the coast that had experienced some early spring thaw, and those stood in stark contrast to huge glaciers that covered large portions of the island.  As we approached the airport, we saw Reykjavik, the most northern capital city in the world, off in the distance (it’s about a 45-minute drive into the city from the airport). I was surprised at how small the city looked, but then remembered that there are only about 300,000 people in the entire country…

We landed around 4:00 PM and when we went to pick up the rental car we realized that everybody else on our flight must have booked the same “amazing” car rental deal.  The line for the “discounted” car rental place where we booked was ENORMOUS and we had a 4-hour drive ahead of us. We were hoping to make it to our hotel on the southern coast before nightfall, so we canceled our reservation and paid a bit more to rent a car at another place (that was only 10 feet away and didn’t have a ridiculous line) and we were on our way. After several days driving in Scotland and Ireland, Nate was excited to be driving on the right-hand side of the road again.  

Prior to our trip, a friend had mentioned that eating out in Iceland was extremely expensive, so when we saw (what we thought) was a grocery store we crossed our fingers and got off the freeway.  We totally lucked out! Just walking through the grocery store was an adventure. We recognized some foods, but there were plenty of items that we were just clueless about. We did our best to gather some sandwich fixings and we took a chance on some “Rugbraud”, hoping that it was the dark rye bread (historically boiled near a volcanic vent) that Nate had read about (but couldn’t remember the name of) and again we totally lucked out and picked the right the stuff! We spent about 6,500 Icelandic Krona ($60) on our groceries and that took care of lunches and dinners for the next two days.  

The Icelandic language was like nothing I had ever heard.  I could listen to it all day long (and never understand a word).  Fun fact, Tolkien used it as the basis for the language of the elves in his Lord of the Rings books.

Near the coast, the Icelandic landscape was like something from another world. It was covered in huge chunks of grey, volcanic rock, and dusted with snow. It was stark but beautiful.  The road to the south coast took us inland away from the ocean in some places. As it was still early spring the landscape was treeless and mostly brown. We joked that we flew all this way to take a drive that looked a lot like eastern Idaho.  But then we’d see a cliff or a waterfall or a glacier or come over the crest of a hill and see the ocean and then it felt new and strange again.

About 3 hours into our drive we stopped at a black sand beach in Vik. It was chilly but absolutely beautiful.

We made it to our hotel after dark. In typical Icelandic style, the rooms were clean and simple.  We put our names on the northern lights wake-up call list, just in case, but no luck on seeing those.

 

We were the first ones up for breakfast the next morning.  It was delicious.

 

We had a LOT of ground to cover so we hopped in the car and headed east.  

 

On the drive, we saw fields of the most beautiful moss covered rocks.  

After about an hour we made it to the glacial lake of Jökulsárlón.  It was absolutely stunning! The lagoon was filled with gigantic chunks of glacial ice that had broken away from the glacier that spilled into the north end of the lake.

Through a thin channel at the south end of the lake, the glacial ice slowly made its way out to sea, where the wind and current pushed the ice onto a black sand beach.  When the ice was illuminated by the sun it looked like the beach was covered with huge glittering jewels.

We headed back west to begin our return journey.  We were planning on sleeping in Reykjavik and we had a ton that we wanted to see before sunset.  

We took a hike up to the waterfall and basalt formations at Svartifoss. It was the same type of geologic phenomenon that we saw at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Fantastic!

We drove up a one-lane jeep trail to a mountaintop next to the sea at Reynisfjall. The view was spectacular!

By this time it was late afternoon, but we still had some things we were hoping to see before sundown, so we hightailed it up to the “Golden Circle”, which is one of the most popular drives and tourist areas in Iceland.

We made our way to the Geysir hot springs. Geysir, sometimes known as The Great Geysir, is a geyser in southwestern Iceland. It was the first geyser described in a printed source and the first known to modern Europeans. The English word geyser derives from Geysir.

Then we drove to Gullfoss, where the flow of the river from the regular rains and the glacial runoff, particularly in summer, makes it the largest volume falls in Europe.  

Finally, as it was getting dark we arrived at Þingvellir, where the where the North American and Eurasian plates meet.  

We made the drive into Reykjavik after sundown.  

The next morning we packed up and headed over to our 10:00 AM appointment at the Blue Lagoon.  You must have a reservation and it’s about $100 per person, but it really was worth it. It was simply magical.  We had a great time! The water was a little warmer than bath water in most places, but the closer you got to a vent, the hotter the water became. The silica in the water makes it feel silky.  There were a number of natural mud masks freely available, as well. It was a great way to relax at the end of our trip.

And that’s a wrap on my Big Spring 2018 European Vacation! I hope that you enjoyed hearing about it as much as I enjoyed reliving it!

XOXO

Melessa & Nate