After more than a year of planning, we are finally in Iceland!
We weren’t sure we would make it there when we left home on Saturday, however. After picking up our friend, Wendy, who is traveling with us, we headed to Denver for our flight. Traffic on I-25 was horrible so we got off the interstate and headed on some of the backroads. Two hours later, we were finally at the airport and checked in. We got to our gate and our flight on Icelandair was almost 45 minutes late leaving Denver – ugghh. It was rainy as we were taking off for our overnight flight. We hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come!
After a not-so-restful night’s sleep, we were awake to see Greenland as we flew over. It was pretty amazing to see. Iceland and Greenland should change names.
Seven plus hours later we landed at the Keflavik airport. All along the runway were fields of lupines!
We breezed through customs and headed out to the rental car shuttle. This was the queue for the shuttle! Tobey asked the driver where the actual office was and we skipped the line and walked to the Blue Car Rental office, arriving before the buses!
With our paperwork filled out and car keys in hand, we were off on our first day of exploring the Golden Circle. Our route took us along Mount Skalafel and the rift valley. You could see the volcanic upheavals all along the road.
As the day went on, the clouds started to clear and blue skies helped the temperatures warm up.
We passed fields and fields of lupine.
One of our first stops was Geysir, a famous hot spring in the geothermal area of Haukadalur Valley, found in southwest Iceland. It is just one of the attractions along the world-renowned Golden Circle sightseeing route we followed, alongside
Þingvellir National Park. Geysir is most well-known for having lent its name to geysers all around the world even though Geysir itself is rarely active these days! This is Geysir, which reminded us more of Morning Glory Pool in Yellowstone National Park!
The Haukadalur Valley boasts a plethora of hot springs and geysers, including the powerful Strokkur, Smiður and Litli-Strokkur. Strokkur erupts with the most frequency, almost every 10 minutes. We followed the crowds to the watch the eruption. Strokkur shoots vast jets of boiling water from 65 feet up to 130 feet high. Not nearly as impressive as Old Faithful, but definitely, more frequent!
There were many pools of blue water and other areas of yellow sulphuric stains along the fumaroles themselves, a result of the earth’s minerals crystalizing around the rock bed.
At the visitor’s center was a Viking statue. Looks like a tough guy!
From Geysir, we continued on to Gullfoss, the “gold waterfall”.
Gullfoss is located in the Hvítá river canyon in southwest Iceland. The water in Hvítá River travels from the glacier Langjökull, before cascading 105 feet down Gullfoss’ two stages.
The first, shorter cascade is 36 feet, while the second drop is 69 feet. The canyon walls on both sides of the waterfall reach heights of up to 230 feet, descending into the great Gullfossgjúfur canyon. We were lucky enough to see the falls on a sunny day and see the rainbow above the water. It was beautiful!
After our visit to the falls, we headed to Flúðir. We drove along narrow roads which suddenly turned to gravel! There are several farms with Icelandic horses and we waited while this group was passing on a one-lane bridge.
Sheep are everywhere in Iceland, also! We were warned by the rental car company to watch for them on the roads … and they are! These two are decked out in our Colorado State University colors – green and gold – well, the green at least! We laughed that Cam the Ram, (our mascot) had relatives here!
In Flúðir we went to the Gamla Laugin “secret lagoon” hot pool. It’s not so secret anymore! Two years ago it was free admission according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, now it is $3000 ISK per person (about $24USD). They were pretty busy! We spent a couple hours relaxing in the hot water before heading on to Selfoss.
This is the old changing room! The new one is modern with showers and lockers … guess that’s why the price went up!
We had dinner at Kaffi Krus before checking into our Airbnb. They were busy, busy, busy!! Wendy had the fish soup, I had the broccoli soup and Tobey had the fish and chips. The soups were good, the fish and chips were so-so.
It’s hard to believe that it is after 8pm and still this light outside! We are all exhausted and hope to sleep well!
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