So....we went to ICELAND!
First things first...it was by far the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It beat Alaska. It beat Hawaii (by a smidge). It was just.....everything. Dramatic coastlines, dramatic inland, dramatic everything.
We left on a Saturday late afternoon and arrived Saturday morning local time. I love taking pictures from the plane. I can never sleep on planes, so I'm always on the lookout for good photos. Flying above the clouds over the North Atlantic ocean:
And when the pilot announced our descent to Iceland, I got some good shots as I got my first glimpse of the country.
Our first stop was the Blue Lagoon, because it's just 20 minutes from the airport. It's a geothermal spa located on a lava field.
The water is full of silica (a mineral) and the water is soft and healing. The water temp is between 99-102 degrees.
Our tickets included drinks at the swim up bar which was quite lovely.
Tickets must be purchased in advance, because the Blue Lagoon only allows a certain number of people in per hour because they don't want it to get too crowded. Their plan works. It wasn't too crowded.
After the Blue Lagoon, we drove to get groceries. Eating out is incredibly expensive in Iceland and our cottage came with a kitchen so we decided to cook a lot of our meals at home instead of eating out.
Then we drove to our cottage. This cottage was amazing. It was about an hour north of Reykjavik.
Here's just a few pics of the inside:
And the views from the outside:
And here's an odd picture of the inside of the fridge and some of the groceries they got. Iceland makes this amazing yogurt type product called Skyr. We had it every day.
We sat on this couch every night and took in the views, watched movies, and just RELAXED.
Sunday we drove to two of the four waterfalls we saw in Iceland. They were beautiful of course:
After a scenic drive home (basically on a volcano), we took a walk along the beach by our cottage.
Another thing about Iceland in the late Spring...it never gets dark.
Monday was a busy day. We woke up and drove for 4 hours to the south coast of Iceland.
On the way there, we stopped at a wool market. Icelandic wool is a HUGE deal in Iceland. First off....knitting is a huge deal. Children are taught to knit in school. Women knit. Men knit. Children knit. EVERYONE knits. So we wanted to buy either a sweater or scarf or hat or something. Our Air B&B host said to make sure that whatever wool we buy is truly Icelandic wool and hand-knitted in Iceland. Because a lot of tags will say 'designed in Iceland' but it's actually made in China.
Anyways....we stumbled upon this little store in the town of Hella (if you can call it a town) and decided to take a look around.
We walked in and there was an older lady sitting in a chair, knitting, of course. She was somewhat grumpy and pretended not to speak English but she KNEW English. :) We perused the store and picked out some wool hats, knitted by local residents with pure Icelandic wool. And let me tell you...that hat saved my ears that day!
Our first stop was the village of Vik.
It's a black sand beach with a 'treacherous' ocean. There aren't many signs in Iceland as far as trails or 'keep out' or anything like that, but there ARE signs on Vik beach telling you NOT TO TURN YOUR BACK ON THE OCEAN. Multiple signs. They aren't messing around. Apparently this waves here can be so strong that it can whisk you away if you're not paying attention.
And yes, I realize the irony of this because during this picture we had our backs to the ocean. However, I could SEE the ocean in my phone as I was taking this picture. Does that make it okay? :)
On our way back to the cottage, we stopped at TWO more waterfalls. The first one was my favorite part of the whole trip.
Skogafoss.
It's a 200 foot waterfall that you can pretty much walk right up to and stand near the bottom. It falls into a stream. But it is so incredibly powerful. And the fact that you can get so close to it is just....surreal.
There were just a handful of other people there. The beauty of traveling off-season. There was a couple from Texas that were there so we took some pictures for them and they took some pictures for us.
Except for these, which my husband took. This was right after I stood as close as I possibly could to this ginormous waterfall and let it spray me directly in the face. I was laughing. It was just one of those moments that I will never forget!
Even though it was cold and we both got drenched....it was completely worth it.
After we were happy and drenched, we stopped at the cafe that was near the waterfall for some traditional Icelandic lamb stew to warm up (it was really good!). And beer and hot chocolate (of course).
And then we drove to Seljalandsfoss.
Impressive, right? But the super cool thing about this waterfall is that you can WALK BEHIND IT. Again....there are a couple of signs that say 'at your own risk'. Because you're basically climbing a bit and on slippery rocks. With nothing to hang onto. But we couldn't go to this waterfall and NOT walk behind it!! So we were careful and we walked behind it. It was amazing.
We got wet, but not as wet as we did at Skogafoss.
And just pure prettiness on the way home.
Because Monday was such a long day (8+ hours in the car total), we decided to take it easy on Tuesday.
We slept in, had breakfast at the cottage and just RELAXED.
Then we went to Akranes, the closest 'city' to us (maybe a 15 minute drive?). There are about 7,000 inhabitants that live there. We went to the lighthouses and climbed to the top of one of them.
Again...hardly any people were up there. In fact, the lighthouse keeper (is that what they call them?) said 'if you're the last ones up there, close the hatch please'. So my husband closed the hatch on a decades old lighthouse on the Icelandic coast. :)
After we got home, we soaked in the hot pot (a.k.a. hot tub, they call them hot pots in Iceland). With this view:
On Wednesday, we went to Reykjavik. Reykjavik is the northern most capital city in the world. It is home to about 150,000 people, about 1/2 of the population of Iceland.
We walked around the city center, snapped some pictures, went into a couple of shops. And then we went to the mid-week meeting. It was wonderful!
Thursday was full of more beautiful things. First, we made a pit stop in Borgarnes. This was literally the view right outside the market.
It's just....unreal.
Then we had to make another pit stop when we saw these beauties near the road.
This was another one of those surreal moments. Feeding carrots to Icelandic ponies. Gah!!!!
Then we made it to our destination: Arnarstapi.
Oh my.
Just....so much beauty. We hiked and just when we thought it couldn't get prettier, it got prettier.
On the way home, we stopped for lunch at this amazing hotel pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We were the only ones there for lunch. There were, however, two men in the 'lounge' room knitting.
It was just so charming. The food was really good too.
Friday was our last full day in Iceland. We had a slow morning, then headed into Reykjavik one more time.
We then had an early evening and packed up. Of course we spent more time in the hot pot.
And then Saturday evening we headed back to America.
Iceland was everything I imagined it would be. It was beautiful. Dramatic. Unexpected. Wonderful people. Wonderful experiences.
I have a 'travel tips' post in the works that has more details about our trip. I also plan to write a 'what we bought' post as well.
Until next time Iceland. We WILL be back!!
