Hello!
I spent this past week in Iceland exploring and reconnecting with a friend from high school who moved back to Iceland a few years ago.
The first couple of days, Maja was visiting Denmark, so I was on my own. But, she suggested this amazing Icelandic soup restaurant. You can get a massive bread bowl and unlimited free refills, so you can try different kinds! It was so good that I went back the next day again!
On Monday, I went on a tour of the Golden Circle, which includes the main highlights of Iceland. Our tour guide told us that of the 2 million tourists that visit Iceland each year, almost every single one of them does the Golden Circle!
We went first to Thingvellir National Park. It includes “the rock,” the site of Iceland’s first government gatherings. The flagpole in this picture indicates where historians believe “the rock” was mostly likely located.
Also, the national park is situated on the border on two tectonic plates. The side I took this picture from is North America, while the other side. marked by the black line in the distance, is Eurasia. There a deep ravine visually marking the edge of each plate on either side, while the actual border is somewhere in the middle.
The park also includes the President of Iceland’s summer home, which is also used to house distinguished guests. Apparently, Bill Clinton once stayed there.
After Thingvellir, we went to a geothermal area that is home to the first geyser to be called a geyser. That one hasn’t erupted for ten years because at one point someone discovered if you put a few gallons of soap into, it will erupt. Eventually, forcing it to erupt over and over broke the geyser and now it hardly ever erupts. However, there is one called Strokkur that wasn’t abused with soap and erupts every five to ten minutes!
Finally, we went to Gullfoss Falls, one of the most popular sites in Iceland! The entire tour gets its name, the Golden Circle, from this waterfall, whose name translates to the Golden Falls. With the right amount of sun shining, the light reflecting off the spray of the waterfall creates a golden sheen that gives the falls its name. You can walk right up to the falls, which is really fun, but very wet! I was glad I packed my rain pants!
After the tour, I walked around Reykjavík to see all of the highlights there, including Hallgrimskirkja, the rainbow street, the city center and the old harbor. The city is very cute and colorful!
This building I’ve seen in a documentary on Netflix about the architect! I had completely forgotten it was in Reykjavík, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw it appear in front of me!
On Tuesday, I reunited with Maja and we went to Snæfellsnes, the middle peninsula on the west coast! We attempted to see a glacier, but it was collecting clouds. So, even though the rest of the sky was blue, we couldn’t see it. We did get to see a famous mountain and some waterfalls and caves though! We also climbed to the top of a volcano to see the crater!
On our way back from Snæfellsnes, we stopped at Maja’s campus, which is in a very small town that doesn’t even have a grocery store! We also stopped in this adorable fishing village that is Maja’s mom’s favorite town in all of Iceland!
On Wednesday, we went to Vík, on the south coast, where we actually saw a glacier (!), as well as a black sand beach, more waterfalls and no puffins.
We climbed to this secret waterfall which involved using a staked chain to scale a mini-waterfall! This is one of Maja’s family’s favorite spots that they’re trying to keep secret from tourists — the perks of having a local guide!
This is where the puffins were supposed to be, but it was a very windy day, so we think they were hiding from the wind. It was still a very pretty view though! Maja told me that someone has flown a plane through that arch in the mountain!
On the way to Vík, we saw the newest islands in the world! The newest one is so new that people are not allowed on it yet. It appeared just in the 90s!
Thursday, we went to Grindavík, a nearly abandoned town near an active volcano site. Seeing the lava was pretty cool! We could see some in the distance that still smoking after nearly two years of cooling in the cold of Iceland — that really puts into perspective just how hot it actually it.
Here, the lava flowed onto the road and they had to build a new one beside it. This lava was cool and safe to touch, but it wouldn’t be safe to try clearing it because there could still be very hot lava beneath the visible layer.
In Grindavík, many of the houses are badly damaged or completely uninhabitable due to to the nearby volcano and recent earthquakes. The city has been evacuated twice in the past few years, but miraculously only one house has been consumed by lava. Most residents have permanently relocated, but we still saw some real creative fixes, such as this house that looks like it was duct taped back together!
We stopped to see a few more geothermal areas and viewpoints along the coast and then hiked up to a hot spring we could swim in! Swimming might be a strong word though, it was just deep enough to sit in. We were there for hours though, it felt so nice! It was like the temperature of a hot tub, but fresh water. It was so warm and the water was so clear — you could see the details of the rocks on the bottom! The only bad part was having to get out in the 40 degree weather 🤪
Iceland was definitely one of the coolest places I’ve been! It looks like a completely different planet with the black ground of lava rocks and steam rising from geothermal sites everywhere.
– From Iceland
Leave a Reply