June 26, 2019 - Reykjavík, Iceland to Fort Collins, Colorado

Our plan today was to sightsee in Reykjavík before going to the airport. You know how plans can change! It was raining steadily this morning, so we did an abbreviated tour after getting gas in the car!

We stopped at Hallgrímskirkja (Hallgrims church). It was completed in 1986 and took over 40 years to build. The church was designed to resemble the basalt lava flows found in Iceland’s natural landscape. The church is supposed to be visible from almost any point in the city, but with the rain and clouds, it wasn’t! The building is 240 feet high.

In front of Hallgrímskirkja is a statue of Icelandic Viking Leif Eiriksson. He was the first European to set foot on the North American continent around 1,000 AD. The Icelandic sagas suggest that Leifur found America 500 years before Christopher Columbus did. The impressive statue was a gift from the United States on the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Althing Parliament in 1930.

That ended our sightseeing in Reykjavík! We headed off to Keflavik, stopping for lunch along the way. I finally remembered to take pictures of our Renault Kadjar rental car. It was an automatic with a diesel engine.

Gas prices ranged from $225 ISK ($1.80USD) to $238 ISK ($1.90) per liter. ($6.84-7.22 per gallon). We ended up spending about $264USD for gas and drove 2812km (1747 miles) during our 10 days in Iceland.

By the time we got to the airport, the rain had finally stopped!  We visited the stores in the airport and FINALLY spotted the famous Icelandic trolls!

Once again, Icelandair’s flight was one hour late departing  - this time because we were waiting on a connecting flight. We arrived back to Denver safely around 7:45pm, got the car, dropped Wendy off at her house and were home shortly after 10pm. With the time change, it was 4 am Iceland time! Needless to say, we were tired!

I will have a separate post with videos (mostly waterfalls!) and more pictures.