After a good breakfast at our hotel, we were picked up by our travel company to get our rental car. After a few stressful moments to figure out how to work things in the car and how to navigate (we ditched the GPS and used Google Maps), we were off for our first adventure!.
As soon as we got beyond Reykjavik, the road stretched before us as we headed toward the attractions along the Golden Circle. Although this is a very popular area for tourists, the traffic was minimal.
The roads in Iceland were lined with fields of wild lupines! It was gorgeous and we had to stop for photos.
Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park. This location is where Iceland held its first parliament. You can hike between the rift between North America and Eurasia. There are beautiful views that look out over the valley. (Note: the gift shop here had a large variety of sandwiches and snacks available for lunch.)
Our next stop was at the Efstidalur Farm for some delicious ice cream for an afternoon snack.
We continued on to the Geysir Geothermal Area. Here you can walk among bubbling hot springs, although if you have been to Yellowstone you will find the area to be very small in comparison.
The big attraction is the Strokkur geyser which erupts every 4 to 10 minutes. Sometimes it is a small burst, but I discovered that it can also erupt with enthusiasm and I got doused with a large spray. The eruption lasts only a couple seconds, so have your camera set to burst mode if you want a good shot.
We headed up the road to Gullfoss Waterfall. This waterfall drops 105 feet in two stages of 35 feet and 70 feet. There are stairs and walkways that let you enjoy the view from different locations.
One view looks like a shape like a wedge of pie, I think!
We then headed out to find our hotel. One of the great things about traveling in Iceland during the summer is that it never gets dark! We were able to tour as long as we wanted and still had daylight to find our hotel. Our hotel for the night was Brekkugerdi Guesthouse. It was fine, but probably our least favorite hotel of the trip. The rooms we had were small, no view, the breakfast was ok, and they asked you to take off your shoes when entering which is inconvenient when hauling luggage. Breakfast was served in a pretty glassed sunroom that looked out on the lawn.
We needed to hurry out to the one restaurant in the area before it closed and had a meal of fish and chips. We learned that many of the small towns had limited meal options, so you needed to plan ahead!
The restaurant was in the hotel in the small town of Skalholt. When leaving we caught the golden
hour glow on the church and a small turf house. A nice view to ending the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment