Our Iceland Trip Overview

 

Put on your seatbelts because this will be a long post but...mostly in photos!  Those of you who follow us on Facebook have already been-there-seen-that, so feel free to pass this by.  This is, as I often say, FOR THE RECORD.

With a rental car, we drove the Ring Road from and back to Reykjavik, clockwise,

arriving May 6 from Amsterdam and returning back to Amsterdam May 16 (11 days/10 nights).

Day 1, Friday, May 6:  Arrival in Reykjavik, the capital (55 km):

Arrived at Keflavik Airport by 3:30, picked up our rental car, drove 31 miles to Reykjavik,

and arrived at our hotel by 6 p.m.  (The flight was 3.5 hours from Amsterdam.)

A wee walk from the hotel, we found an "electric" place to eat our first Icelandic food:

smoked charr, baked cod and Bríó beer, topped off with Italian ice cream.

Then we took a walk near our hotel to get our first impressions of this city...and country.

Day 2, Saturday, May 7:  Snaefellnes Peninsula (305 km):

Beginning the Ring Road northwest from Reykjavik, I felt like I was in an episode 

from the Lord of the Rings, expecting to see Gandalf and the Hobbits around any corner/curve.

Two major attractions:  the Bjarnarfoss waterfall and the Black Church across the road 3 km away...

...then to the Snaefellsjökull National Park to see the black rocks and cliffs.

Day 3, Sunday, May 8:  Borgarfjördur Fjord near Borgarnes (223 km):

The Hraunfossar and Barnafoss are 2 waterfalls next to each other, where we spent 45 minutes.

On our way back from the falls, we stopped at the Rock 'n' Troll campsite in Fossatún, since trolls

 are a huge part of Icelandic (and Norwegian!) lore.  We had the unexpected surprise of a wee waterfall.

Day 4, Monday, May 9:  Akureyri (342 km):

After 30 min. of driving, we stopped to climb the Grábrók volcano in Bifröst.

The 500+ timber steps did not stop me, though I was a bit wobbly at the end.  HA!

Astrid has always been intrigued by peat, which is used to help stabilize the Dutch dijks,

so it was a must to see in Vidimyri one of the 6 remaining peat churches (center image)

 as well as the Glaunbear turf houses 11 km away.  

That's when we saw our first sheep of the trip, finding out they don't leave the barns

until their lambs are born.  From then on we started seeing them everywhere.

But they look nothing like the Dutch sheep!

Day 5, Tuesday, May 10: Mývatn (119 km):

At the Godafoss, "Waterfall of the Gods," we spent 1.5 hours walking both sides of the river.

This was supposedly where Christianity was introduced to Iceland in the 11th century.

These are views of our drive around Lake Mývatn, the area of lava fields, craters, 

geothermal hot springs and mud pools, the latter of which we saw the next day.

Day 6, May 11, Wednesday:  Egilsstadir (309 km):

We woke up to snow, which made the road impassable to the Dettifoss falls, 

considered to be Iceland's most famous and powerful.  But we took it in stride and did what we could.

The most northern harbor city of Húsavik was actually more on our radar,

known as Iceland's center for whale-watching, as well as for the wooden church landmark.

(No, we didn't go whale-watching, something I'd already done in Alaska.)

The geothermal fields of Námaskard that we passed the day before were a highlight of our trip.

Day 7, May 12, Thursday:  Eastfjords and Höfn Area (286 km):

We drove south from Egilsstadir through sun, rain and snow in and out of the eastern fjords.

Once out of the fjords, we stopped by a field of sheep and got invited into the stable by the farmers.

Those 2 lambs on the right had just been born that morning.  Talk about getting an education,

especially about cutting the rams' horns if they keep them from eating (leading to death).

Once in Höfn, finding out it's known for its lobster (Norwegian langoustine),

we made sure we had lobster pizza for dinner that evening.  OMG!

Day 8, May 13, Friday:  Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon to Vik (296 km):

By now we were at the SE side of Iceland, visiting the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon 

where we saw the break-down of icebergs from the Vatnajökull Glacier.

Like the peat houses before, Astrid wanted to see the basalt deposits from the cooled lava.

Twelve km apart, we first saw the Dwarf Rock columns at Dverghamrar (left side) 

and then the Kirkjugólf Church Floor (right side).

Because I researched places to eat, I especially wanted to find this Skool Beans coffee café bus

in Vik.  It was a rainy day, perfect for a latte macchiato inside the mostly empty bus with a roaring fire.

You apparently can't get a seat during tourist season, because it's that busy.

Before eating supper that night, we went to the Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach near Vik, seeing 

our only puffin of the trip.  Not sure if it was sick because it didn't fly away when people were around?

Day 9, May 14, Saturday:  Golden Circle (355 km):

This was the first of 2 waterfalls that day, at Skógafoss, one of Iceland's tallest.

This time I was wise and did NOT climb the 600+ steps that Astrid climbed, happy to stay below.

In between the 2 waterfalls, we stopped to see the Strokkur Geysir, erupting every 4-8 minutes,

30 meters into the air.  [Thanks to Astrid for her iPhone video.]

Addendum:  the video works in draft but not here.  Will try to figure it out.  (sigh)

The 2nd falls that day was Gullfoss, Iceland's most famous because it's only 47 miles from Reykjavik.

The rain had just stopped but the blowing spray was everywhere.

Day 10, May 15, Sunday:  Reykjavik (23 km):

We added an extra full day in Reykjavik** to see what we thought might be important,

spending 4 hours at the Perlan Museum in the morning, to synthesize all that we had just seen,

and then driving/walking around the rest of the day, seeing the sights.

Day 11, May 16, Monday:  Back to Reflavik Airport (48 km):

        ...for our 7:40 a.m. flight back to Amsterdam.  We got up at 3:45 a.m., picked up our hotel to-go breakfast and got there in plenty of time.

Total trip:  2,290 km = 1,423 miles

(ALL driven by Astrid, bless her, because of my shoulder tear!)

And YES, it was totally worth it!  More to come, of course, in time.

**[We used the Rediscover the World site out of the UK to book our 9 nights/10 days, adding one day at the end, 

and highly recommend their service and communication.  Top Rate!]

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

And now, after a week of getting settled, we're off tomorrow for our Shutterchance meetup in England.  It usually happens every other year but because of COVID, we last met in 2018.  It's time to meet up again!