Iceland Day 3 - Magma Hotel

Nordic Advisor had upgraded us to the beautiful Magma Hotel for this evening. It is located about 5 miles off the Ring Road in a secluded area.

Our rooms were located in these individual cabins. They look deceptively rustic on the outside.

Each cabin had a traditional turf roof, which was pretty cool!

Each cabin was named after a volcano in Iceland. Ours was named after the volcano that erupted in 2010 and disrupted airspace in Europe for a number of days.

Although the exterior of the cabins looked rustic, the inside was stunning! We had a standard and a deluxe room, both of which were lovely! I was lucky enough to stay in the deluxe room which had an incredible view of a glacial river surrounded by mossy lava hills. These were the nicest rooms that we had in Iceland - they had both comfort and a view!

The gorgeous view from the deck outside our room.

At midnight, the dusky view of the midnight sun.

Breakfast was served in the lovely dining room in the main reception building. It had a wonderful variety of foods including pancakes, smoked salmon, and warm bread. 

We truly enjoyed staying at the Magma Hotel. 

Iceland Day 3 - Chasing Waterfalls and Waves

Our day began with a quick stop at the Kerid Crater. We walked around the front rim of the crater, but we knew there were more interesting places to see so we didn't linger for very long. Then we drove through the town of Selfoss and stopped at a Kronan grocery store to pick up sandwiches for lunch along with some Icelandic chocolate for souvenirs.

Now we were beginning to journey along the Ring Road which travels the circumference of Iceland. For me, the most thrilling view in Iceland was when Seljalandsfoss came into view as we were driving. There was a stretch of green mossy cliffs with several falls tumbling down. We parked and donned our hiking boots and waterproof clothes, ready for adventure!

At Seljalandsfoss you can actually hike behind the falls! Prepare to get wet. It is gorgeous (and those puffy clouds in the blue sky resulted in lovely photos).

A lot of people do not know that if you continue hiking along the base of the cliff that there is another hidden waterfall. The hike to Gljúfrafoss takes about 15 minutes and passes other small falls.

 

Above is the small opening in the canyon to Gljúfrafoss. You will need to cross uneven rocks and shallow water, so waterproof hiking shoes are helpful. You WILL get wet as you get close to the waterfall. 

This is what happens when you put your iPhone in the pocket of your yellow raincoat as you are hiking - ha!

Next we continued along the Ring Road. We had views of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano which erupted in 2010. (At least we THINK this is the volcano, it might be another one!) 

The next major waterfall that you come to is Skogafoss. There was a field of lupines across the road from this fall, so we first took some pictures from that vantage point. This location was very busy in the early afternoon! We only walked to the base of this powerful waterfall, but you can hike to the top if you wish.

The Ring Road now travels along the coastline. We stopped at Dyrhólaey Beach for a view of the ocean, arch, and sea stacks. We hoped to see puffins, but apparently, they are out in the ocean until the evening.

We continued down the road to Reynisfjara Beach, which is also known as the Black Sand Beach. The black sand is formed by lava which over time is broken down into sand. This location was also quite busy when we stopped in the late afternoon. The beach has a lovely view of sea stacks, but the most unique feature is the basalt column formations along the cliff and the sea caves. It is fun to climb and pose on the columns.

We drove up to the pretty village of Vik to get another view of the beach and the quaint church.

Then more driving, through miles and miles of fields of lupines as far as the eye could see! 

via GIPHY

After a while, the view changed to miles of bumpy little hills of mossy lava in an area called Eldhraun.

As we approached our hotel, there were limited dining options and the restaurant that we wanted was filled with a long wait. Our other option was a gas station restaurant called Skaftarskali where we dined on burgers and fries. (Our hotel had a lovely dining room and if we had known we could have made reservations to dine there.)  Nordic Advisor had upgraded us to the beautiful Magma Hotel for this evening. This hotel was so special that I will share about it in the next post!

Iceland Day 2 - the Golden Circle

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.

Iceland Day 1 - Reykjavik

We arrived at the Keflavík International Airport in Iceland around 6 am. After clearing customs, we were met by a driver (who was arranged by Nordic Advisor when they planned our trip). He drove us the 45 minutes to our hotel in downtown Reykjavik. It was really nice not to have to think too hard when jet-lagged - we didn't have to deal with our rental car (yet), directions, parking, or logistics. We were dropped off directly at our hotel.

We stayed at the Hótel Frón which was in a great location on Laugavegur right in the center of Reykjavik. We were close to shops and restaurants and could easily walk to the attractions that we wanted to see. We were able to check into one of our two rooms when we arrived in the morning. They also let us eat breakfast. The breakfast was generous and included cereal, skyr yogurt, breads, meat, cheeses, fruit, and a few doughnuts along with juices and hot drinks.

Hotel Fron has a variety of room styles in several buildings. We were in the rear building where the rooms seemed a bit older and had a small kitchen area. One room was a bit larger than the other (which happened at several locations on our trip). Not fancy but comfortable, and we loved the convenient location. The street we stayed on was filled with lots of colorful street art.

We walked to the unique Hallgrímskirkja church which is the most striking landmark of the city. It was designed to resemble the basalt rock pillar formations that you frequently see around Iceland. We wanted to get there before the crowds to take the elevator up to the viewpoint at the top. Up there we were able to see amazing views of the city, the harbor, and the mountains.

The view of the colorful buildings and roofs from above is very striking!

We wandered around a lagoon area for a bit, then headed to see the Harpa Concert Hall. It is another building with unique architecture and we enjoyed seeing the beautiful honeycombed glass colors reflected on the floor inside.

Then we walked along the harbor to see the Sun Voyager statue.

Lunch was Icelandic hot dogs at the Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur hot dog stand, made famous when Bill Clinton ate here. The hot dog is lamb-based and is traditionally covered in ketchup, mustard, fried and raw onion and remoulade. (I opted for just the ketchup and fried onion.) I'm not a big fan of hot dogs, but these were pretty good.

We returned to our hotel in the afternoon to rest and refresh for a bit. Later we wandered the streets to do some souvenir shopping. We ended up at Cafe Loki for dinner where we had some traditional Icelandic lamb soup and rye bread. We especially liked the bread which has a sweet flavor. We also had our first experience with sticker shock on the food prices - about $25 for one meal!

Iceland Road Trip 2019 - Planning Tips

Iceland has been on my travel bucket list ever since I saw it featured on an episode of the Amazing Race a number of years ago. Who knew it was not just a pile of snow, but actually was a country filled with a variety of stunning landscapes! My three friends and I have been planning this trip for several years. In this post, I will share some details of how we put our trip together (to help others who might be interested in visiting there). In future posts, I will share what we did each day with hotel and food details.

Airflight: We did some comparing of flight cost between WOW airlines and Icelandair, and found Icelandair was cheaper. In November we booked flights out of Cleveland. Boy, were we glad that we did when WOW went bankrupt a couple months before our trip. Then Icelandair canceled all their flights out of Cleveland due to the Boing 737 grounding. Thankfully, they were able to change our reservation to Toronto. 

Parking: We drove to Toronto from Detroit on the day of our flight. We used the Park and Go at the Delta Marriott Hotel near the airport which was very efficient and convenient. We stayed at the hotel the night we returned from our trip.

Trip Planning: We debated if we should take a tour or drive ourselves for our trip. We really wanted to have the freedom to drive ourselves at our own pace but felt a bit overwhelmed to plan everything on our own. 

We opted to use Nordic Advisor (in January) to design a self-drive trip for us. They reserved all our hotels (wonderful breakfasts were included) and rental car. They also supplied a driver to pick us up at the airport to get us to our first hotel and then to our rental car in Reykjavik the next day. They gave us an itinerary of suggested places to visit and detailed maps. They also gave us a loaner phone to use for emergencies/contacting our hotels if needed, a GPS (which was useless), and wifi for the car. The wifi was essential - we used it for Google Maps for our entire trip. We had great coverage for most of the trip. A few remote places the coverage dropped, and we used the Maps.Me app with a downloaded offline map of Iceland (worked great with GPS and no wifi). Nordic Advisor was not a "budget" way to do Iceland, but it was a very convenient way to create a custom tour. They worked with us to get the experience we wanted and patiently answered our many questions. They also appeared to have partnerships with some of the guest houses/hotels that we used - they appeared to fully booked for the summer if you searched online for them. We enjoyed the many unique places and locations where we stayed.

Our rental car was a Land Rover Discovery. We definitely needed the size to hold our luggage!

Our trip was for 11 days/10 nights. We began and ended with a night in Reykjavik. We traveled the Ring Road counterclockwise. I think that was a good plan because the first few days were loaded with many sites to visit and it was great to do it when we were fresh. We also had 2 nights by Lake Myvatn in the middle of the trip, which was nice to have an easy day to tour without heavy driving.

We got a lot of ideas, hints, and helpful advice by joining the Iceland Tips for Travelers group. It was a great place to ask questions and I learned a lot by reading about other people's trips and seeing their photos.

In future blog posts, I will share photos and info on what we did each day. Stay tuned!

Sermon Sketchnotes 2018

I don't get an opportunity to post to this personal blog very often anymore! I am too busy keeping my two school blogs active and busy with other technology projects. But I wanted to post a link to a personal project that I just completed.

Since 2013, I have been creating digital sketchnotes on my iPad. I do them at conferences, for books, videos, and meetings, but I also regularly do sketchnotes of the sermons at my church on Sundays. I decided to compile all the sermon sketchnotes from 2018 into an ebook using the Book Creator app. Here is the link to the book:

Sermon Sketchnotes 2018

And here are Sermon Sketchnotes 2017

To view the ebook, simply click on the link and you can click through the pages of the book.

If you are interested in learning more about creating sketchnotes, here is a link to my resource page:

http://tinyurl.com/ipadsketchnotes

And if you are interested in seeing more of my sketchnotes (along with other creative projects and an occasional picture of my cats), please follow me @karlyb on Instagram!