Day 7: West Iceland / Snæfellsnes Peninsula / Reykjavik

• Grundarfjörður / Kirkjufell / Kirkjufellsfoss
• Reykjavik 
• Hallgrímskirkja Church
• Harpa Concert Hall
• Baejarins Beztu Pylsur
• Laugavegur shopping

We woke up early to drive to Snaefellsnes. We went straight to Kirkjufell, it’s funny because without Waze, even if it’s the most photographed mountain in Iceland, we could’ve missed it so easily.

Now I know why it’s the most photographed mountain, it’s so majestic, perfect! A single photograph of the place would really be able express how beautiful Iceland is.

 

We skipped Hellnar and Arnarstapi, because we felt that we experienced so much awesomeness already, haha, also because we wanted to get back to Reykjavik so we can go up to Hallgrímskirkja church (open from 10am to 5pm) to see downtown Reykjavik from the top. We then went shopping for souvenirs in Laugavegur, went to see Harpa Concert Hall, and went to the famous and apparently the best hotdog in Europe – Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. It was packed even if it was just in a corner downtown.

We met a girl from Singapore who’s doing MBA in Spain, who was also travelling in Iceland alone. We told her that sadly, we were already leaving early the next day, but that we also miss our girls so much already.  We told her about all our funny and crazy stories, about the amazing places and things we’ve seen, about the northern lights, and just really about how a wonderful and amazing Iceland is.

And that concludes our Iceland trip! Hope you enjoyed the photos and stories! Thank you Iceland, you’re like a dream! Someday, we will bring our kids here too 🙂

 

Day 6: North Iceland / Reykjavik

• Akureyri
• Reykjavik

We were originally planning on doing West Iceland and Snaefellsnes Peninsula for this day, but because we fell in love with Akureyri so much, what with the amazing light show the night before, we decided to stay in town a little bit more, and just drive back to Reykjavik and do Snaefellsnes the next day.

The town was even more charming because it was sunny. It had a very happy vibe. We finally gave in to 66 north, but not with the uber expensive coats, we both got sweaters that we could also use here when we go up north, boy oh boy, they feel so good and warm.

I’ve been bugging G since Day 1, about stopping the car to take pictures of these beautiful Icelandic horses (they’re all over Iceland!), but we couldn’t find a perfect spot to stop the car, or it was always too late, speed limit is 90kph when you’re at the Ring Road, so we couldn’t just stop, especially if a car is behind us, there are no shoulders on the road, FYI. So finally, on our way back to Reykjavik, I was the one driving, and saw this farmhouse with all the horses gathered by the fence. We stopped by and rang the door bell, I asked the owner of the house if we could take pictures, he just said “ok, sure”. I imagine he probably always gets random visitors like us.

On our way back, while I was driving, of course we went through a tunnel again and got really stressed driving especially when we got to Reykjavik, so many traffic rules, I’m not used to it!

 

We arrived at our airbnb, and the hosts are an old couple, and they told us stories about their family. Our favorite host and airbnb so far.

That night we had a last seating reservation at the Fish Market, and it was really good, but expensive too, but what the heck!

 

 

 

True enough, while we were eating at the restaurant, around 730pm, I saw something outside. I asked G and he said it’s only a reflection of the light from inside the restaurant, but I felt different, teehee! So I went out without my jacket on, and there I had, one of the most surreal and magical moment in my life, I saw the northern lights! It was very surreal. I rushed back inside and shouted “totoo!” (it’s for real), and everyone in the restaurant looked at me, then looked outside, and before I knew it, everyone was already outside with their cameras. What a perfect moment!

Because this was a once in a lifetime moment, I’m sharing the photos of Lady Aurora in this separate post. *wink*

 

Day 5: North Iceland

• Seydisfjordur
• Myvatn Nature Baths 
• Godafoss
• Akureyri

So turned out, Seydisfjordur was really nice. Our airbnb lies on a foot of a mountain, and it faces a lake on the other side. It was beautiful, especially while watching the sun rise.  And so we were right, the drive was gorgeous as well, we were able to appreciate it more in the morning.

We then drove for 2 hours to Myvatn. The view and landscape in the north are very different from that of the south. North looked more like a dessert and later on, looked like as if we were in Mars!

We went straight to Myvatn Nature Baths at around 11am, but apparently, they only open at 12 noon. We couldn’t even go inside to wait. So we just drove downtown and ate the weirdest lunch we’ve had so far.

After lunch, we went back to the nature bath, and saw that it was already starting to get packed. We were told to shower “naked” in the shower room, before putting our swimsuits and going to the bath. Of course, I didn’t do that. I couldn’t go naked in front of all the other women. Running from the shower room, wearing only my swimsuit going to the bath was really an unforgettable experience. I forgot, I even stopped to take pictures of G, who was already in the bath, before jumping to the bath myself. It felt so good. It was very windy and cold so the hot bath was really relaxing.

It is a less touristy place than the Blue Lagoon. Cheaper too.

We then drove to see Godafoss, also known as the “waterfall of the gods”. Well, it was really gorgeous.

 

After Godafoss, well actually after the bath, we were thinking if we will still go to Dettifoss, the biggest waterfall in Europe, but it would eat a lot of time, and we really wanted to arrive early in Akureyri so we can walk around town and along the harbor as well. So off to Akureryri we went.

Akureyri has become an instant favorite, it’s very charming. It is considered the capital of the north. Its the second most populated city, next to Reykjavik. We found a camera store that sells the plate tripod attachment that we lost during the second day. We were lucky to get the last piece, because we’ve been preparing for this night, according to the forecast (website here), northern lights activity would be very active, it’s the moment we’ve been waiting for.

 

Day 4: Southeast / East Iceland

• Skaftafell / Vatnajokull National Park
• Jokusarlon Glacier Lagoon 
• Hofn
• Seydisfjordur

Originally, we really wanted to join a tour to see natural ice caves, but we found out that these are only offered from November to March. And then we thought of doing the glacier walk, but at the end, we just decided to have an “easy” day. Or so we thought.

Since our only agenda for the day was to visit the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, we thought of visiting the nearby Skaftafell / Vatnajokull National park, to see the famous “black waterfall”, Svartifoss. It was raining the whole time, and we thought, what a great day for a hike! The duration of hike one way, was probably 30-40 minutes, and on our way up, we could see the people coming down all soaked. Man, we should’ve really invested in getting waterproof pants, even if they looked ugly. Good thing we had our waterproof jackets (more about this story in a few). The view going to Svartifoss was absolutely breathtaking. I already forgot how many waterfalls we saw, and how streams we crossed as well. But it was something that we have not done yet before surely, especially the hiking in the rain part.

Svartifoss is like tucked inside the mountains, it was like a secret magical place.

 

Soooo, on our way down, G and I were still talking and kept saying that its a good thing we had waterproof jackets. But as we were talking, I was actually already thinking if the jackets really shielded us from that rain, because I was feeling a bit cold, but thought that perhaps it was just really cold, I mean, we were on top of a mountain and it was windy and raining. When we finally got back to the diner at the foot of the mountain, we removed our jackets, and surprise, surprise! We were apparently soaked. Even our thermals absorbed the rain water. Haha! G at this point was already really thinking about getting the raincoat he saw from 66 North.

After our very interesting and wet and wild adventure, we proceeded to see the floating icebergs of Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon. I remember shouting as soon as we saw them from the car. I just really never imagined I would see icebergs you know, I wanted to scream “Jack!” haha corny. This for me was one of the main highlights of the trip. Could not express how happy I was (still am) for seeing this.

 

We drove to the other side of the beach to see the “Diamond Beach”. This is where the little chunks of ice get washed off to the shore. It was like a winter and ice wonderland. It was crazy and amazing.

We knew today was going to involve a lot of driving. So we went on to Hofn for our stopover and early dinner. The view of the East Fjords is crazy. It was hills and cliffs, which made the drive a bit scary, especially in the rain. We still think that maybe Waze made a crazy and stupid decision of doing a short cut. We were led to a rough road on what seemed to be on a cliff side. The rain and the wind made the drive extra tough because we couldn’t see where we were going. We were only relying on sticks with reflectors that served as road guides, and in the middle of the drive, we felt that the gaps between these guides became longer and longer. We were still laughing at first, and G was still joking a lot, after a while no one was talking anymore, because we were so nervous. After what felt like a hundered years, we finally saw other cars again, I never felt happy to see civilization again!

Oh, the adventure didn’t end there. We stopped for a while in Egilstaddir to stretch. Apparently, our Seydisfjordur airbnb was still like 30 to 40 minutes away. The road on the way there was also apparently very tricky. For the second time, we found ourselves driving in the dark, while it was raining, low visibility and very windy condition, and apparently, we were driving on a mountainous road again. The next day, we’d be able to appreciate the view, but not that night definitely.

Finally we arrived in Seydisfjordur but we couldn’t locate our airbnb. Waze kept on pointing us at an old hospital turned into a hostel, after a while it got really creepy. We stopped by a bar downtown to ask, since it was a tiny town, they actually even knew who the owner was. **Just last week we saw “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, and it was funny because the bar where we stopped to ask, was the same bar they showed before the vulcano erupted in the movie.