Iceland

The last leg of my long-journey-home was the in only mid-way point between me and Winnie. In December I landed on the awesome island of Iceland, near Ireland (not to confuse you!). When I was looking for flights home from Toronto, I saw that Icelandair were offering a great price, but with a 2 hour stop-over in Reykjavik. I then thought, why not turn 2 hours into 6 days?! 

Almost every person I've told about Iceland, or who have seen our pictures say 'wow that's so cool. I really want to go there' or 'I've always wanted to visit Iceland'. Well, it's a 2.5 hour flight from UK and 5 from Canada, is full of breathtaking natural beauty, a clean, welcoming and English-friendly population and fantastic food, so my question is 'what's stopping you?'

Iceland is all kinds of amazing, but that comes at a price! We soon discovered that the food here is expensive! I decided not to have breakfast in the airport as I didn't want to take out a bank loan, so we found the car rental place and were on our way. Renting a car in Iceland is a MUST unless you plan on staying in only Reykjavik or going on bus tours (whyyyyyyy?!?!). I pre-booked ours online with Thrifty for €210 for 6 days, which I thought was decent and was the cheapest I found. We got a brand new Ford Fiesta automatic. The public transport isn't great here and if you want to get to numerous gorgeous attractions in one day, you'll need your own runner. Also, if you an unlocked phone, click here. We picked up a Síminn SIM card from the shop in the airport and topped it up from there. It was extremely useful to have access to Google Maps and the internet when driving around. 

Another thing about Iceland that is cool is that the time of year that you visit will probably dictate what type of vacation you'll have. Winnie's friend visited Iceland about 2 months before us and sent us photos of green landscapes, crisp autumn fields and approachable waterfalls. When we were there, we could hardly see the road, were surrounded by snow and felt like we were in another dimension. 

The first place we had decided to visit was the popular Blue Lagoon. This is a pretty luxurious volcanic thermal pool and spa, and a must for any trip here. We'd opted for the package that gives you lunch and dressing-gown, free drink and face mask (not that I needed it, eh?). The outside temperature was 0-2°c but the water was an awesome 37-39°c. It's very relaxing and quiet. I advise you to book online first to avoid queuing for tickets. We entered at 10am and booked lunch at 12. We left around 2:30pm. This was ideal for our first day as we arrived at 7am, so we kept ourselves busy and pampered until we could check in to our hostel. 

Everyone's ears are cold but bodies are toasty :)

Facemask and smoothie included

Because of Iceland's geographical location, in December we got about 5 hours of daylight. Sunrise was around 11am and sunset was around 4pm. It is quite light before and after though. We had to remember this when planning an itinerary. In summer you could probably spend all day exploring, in winter you'll get 5-6 hours. Winter time however, is the best time to see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. You can check the 'forecast' for your chances to see the phenomenon here (www.en.vedur.is)

The hostel we stayed in was The Capital-inn which was very clean, well equipped and in a good location. It isn't in the centre of the capital but easily accessible with a car and a good hub to get onto the roads. The first night was spent driving around and 'chasing' the lights. As I drove toward Keflavik Winnie was looking at the sky and we soon found a hint of colour. Only using my camera phone I managed to get a shot, but it didn't do the sight justice. It was really great to see and cool to see how it moves. We were to get better pictures later in the trip.

Another hugely popular, and recommended by me, activity is the 'Golden Circle'. This consists of a visit to 3-4 places of interest which are not-too-far from Reykjavik, so it's is easily doable within 1 day.

• The first stop is in Þingvellir (Thingvillir) national Park. The road to the park provides visitors with a wonderful scenic view of the lake and surrounding areas, whereas the place itself is very unique. It is one of the only places in the world where 2 tectonic/continental plates meet above land. So you can actaully walk up a path between the North American and Eurasian continental plates.

Icelandic flag flies within Thingvillir

Winnie is standing in Europe and looking down the gap to North America

Middle ground - between N. America and Europe

• Then on to Geysir to see Strokkur, a natural geyser which shoots hot water and steam high into the air every 6-8 minutes. It's really cool to see. The place was really eerie when we visited because it was below freezing so all the underground volcanic water was producing steam which was being released up into the air. It looked like another planet at times and was wonderful to experience! 

Sunrise at Geysir

Santa on his pre-season vacation

Ready, steady....

Go!

• The final stop was at Gullfoss (Golden Falls), a wonderful double waterfall that is both wide and powerful. You can walk up the cliff to get a birds-eye view of the falls, or walk down the path to where the water falls into the river below. Each offers an excellent view (and near death experiences in icy conditions)!

We wanted to make sure that we explored Iceland didn't stick to Reykjavík. We headed south down Route 1 (a main road that goes all around Iceland) to Vík and stopped off on the way to see Seljalandsfoss. This is a popular waterfall which you can walk behind. As the weather was freezing cold the spray from the water had formed icicles and black ice on the steps up beside the waterfall. This looked both beautiful and dangerous. But you know me, I laugh in the face of danger....

It actually took me about 10 minutes to climb these steps!

The road between Reykjavik and Vik took us through some really cool landscapes which changed from icy desert to sheer cliff edges. For the whole journey, Winne and I were in awe of the wonderful landscape. On arrival into Vík we climbed the snowy and icy hill in our car to the Vík Hostel. This hostel was in a superb location on the hill, near the church and gave you wonderful views of the town and coastline. The hostel was very eco-friendly and clean. We shared a room with another Canadian and a Slovenian woman who was really friendly.

The town is really small and quaint and is the most convenient location to visit the black beach and see the black rock formations which make this town a popular tourist spot. 

View from the hostel.

In the next day, we decided to press on along Route 1 and make our way to Fáskrúðsfjörður (try saying that when you've had a beer), one of the easternmost settlements in Iceland. It's situated in the fjords of the east of the island. I had read that an old French hospotal had been converted into a hotel out there and I thought it'd be pretty cool to stay there. I was right. The drive there was long and windy but beautiful. We arrived when it was dark (which could have been any time from 4pm onwards) but as we approached the final fjord we got a wonderful view of the aurora borealis.

In fact, the whole journey here had been jaw-droppingly beautiful. The majority of the time we were the only car on the road. There were vast plains of snow-covered volcanic rock, then strikingly fierce mountain ranges. Volcanoes and seismic activity can often bring devastation to many lives, yet Iceland was a welcome example of how Mother Nature can produce such beauty and wonder. 

Some part of some old damaged bridge, looks cool in the surroundings.

En route we stopped off at Skaftafellsjökull, one of Iceland's many glaciers. It you could see the light blue glacier wedged between two dark-rock mountains. It was like being on the moon. 

We had hoped to make it onto Mýrdalsjökull glacier. There are companies that arrange hikes onto 

the glacier and up towards the waterfall, but it was way too snowy for us to get

there. The car got us to the car park, just. But there was noone there,

and I suppose it was out of season. Anyway, we made it to Fáskrúðsfjörður and

found the hotel-come-former french hospital, see Fosshotel Eastfjords. 

The hotel was warm, welcoming and comfortable. The best thing

though has to be the view from our widow and the back of the hotel.

The restaurant downstairs served some great fish and chips, too!

The east fjords was as far away from the capital as we had time to go, so we started to make our way back towards Vík. The weather on this drive was amazing... amazingly bad! The weather here was even reported in the UK media and described as a 'weather bomb'. The winds were ridiculously strong and it was blowing snow form the mountains, across the plains, past the roads towards the coast. We had to drive really slowly and carefully and at times we couldn't see past the bonnet/hood of the car. It was very scary. 

There was a temporary lull in the wind which allowed us to visit another glacier just before the sun went down. We got some good pictures at Jökulsárlón before the wind started back up again and forced us to hit the road and get back to Vík. 

Jökullsárlón glacier pool

I just had to

Just outside Vík we drove past a man whose car had been blown off the road and down into a ditch. Being the good people that we are, we stopped to see if we could help. I think he was Swedish and he didn't speak English or Icelandic, so I used our phone to call 112 and get some help for him and waited until the emergency services arrived. Arriving back at Vík and back to the lovely hostel we were happy to have made it back in one piece. 

It was time to make our way back to Reykjavik. This day was much better than the previous, but it was still quite windy. We visited the famous black beach of Vík and went to see the rock formations. The place is no doubt interesting, but we found it quite difficult to see as the black basalt 'sand' was being blown all over by the wind.

Heading back north towards the capital, we passed Skogarfoss; another waterfall which is popular with tourists. Because of the wind, this was also difficult to get close to but as it was situated pretty close to the road, it wasn't much of a detour so we decided to take a look.

Picture taken of Skogarfoss as I was getting drenched

After arriving back at the hostel in Reykjavik, we dropped off our begs then made our way into the city centre. I wasn't going to leave Iceland without visiting the spooky Hallgrímskirkja , a uniquely-shaped church in the centre. I wasn't disappointed and loved photographing both the inside and outside of the church.

Hallgrímskirkja

The rest of the evening was spent wandering around the city and getting some food. Also preparing myself mentally for the next day which would be my first day back in England since August 2012. We had an amazing time in Iceland, we both definitely want to go back. It's a highly underrated place with a unique almost-Vikingesque culture which is accepting, rich and welcoming. I have seen more and more people mentioning Iceland in the past year and I'm hoping the country can benefit from increased tourism without losing it's sense of 'not many people come here' kind of feeling. 

GO THERE!!!!