Iceland Adventures 2
Are you ready for part deux of our Iceland vacation? In case you missed it, part one (Reykjavik) is here. This post will pick up where my first left off, on day four of our trip. And it’s gonna be a very long one…
Day Four, Continued
This was the longest travel day of the entire trip; we were on the move from about 10am until close to 7pm!
A parking note: though many Icelandic tourist attractions themselves are free, parking is not. The Parka app is the most widely used pay system (both inside and outside of Reykjavik). The app was handy, as smaller attractions often didn’t have credit card machines. EasyPark is another app used in some areas, but I don’t think we ever used it. Larger attractions like the more popular waterfalls typically have credit card machines.
You simply park, find the attraction on your app or scan the QR code on the sign in the parking lot, select which type of vehicle you have, and confirm payment. Parking lots typically have cameras that record your license plate, so if you fail to pay for parking, expect to receive a ticket.
Moving on! For our first attraction, we went to our first Icelandic waterfall, Urriðafoss, in between small towns Selfoss and Hella. This foss (“foss” is Icelandic for waterfall) reminded us a little bit of Great Falls just outside DC:
From there we carried on southeastward until we reached our first major foss. As we neared the foss parking lot, we could see the Westman Islands in the distance:
You can take a ferry to the islands and even stay overnight. It’s a popular spot for viewing puffins! We didn’t take that excursion on our trip, so I guess we’ll just have to go back.
Our first major foss was Seljalandsfoss. This foss had a bustling parking lot, so we could tell it would be a busy stop. We found a parking spot and headed up the path toward the waterfall, seen below:
The waterfall is even more impressive when you get close up. Seljalandsfoss is unique in that there’s a small path that allows visitors to walk behind it. We hadn’t done our research beforehand and I was not prepared to get soaked with waterfall spray, so we got close enough to get lightly misted but didn’t approach further.
There’s another, smaller waterfall a short walk from Seljalandsfoss called Gljúfrabúi. This waterfall is hidden behind imposing stones, and to get to it you have to walk along slippery, wet rocks. Again, I was unprepared so I didn’t go any farther than the entrance to the rock crevice. John went a little ways in to take a closer look.
Seljalandsfoss is a large enough attraction to have a small cafe and gift shop, so I grabbed a coffee for the road.
The next point of interest on our agenda, Skógafoss, was about a 30 minute drive away. By the time we arrived, the sky had turned cloudy and a light rain had begun to fall. No big deal…I put my rain jacket and rain hat on. We knew in advance that Iceland weather can turn on a dime, so it’s best to have apparel at the ready for a variety of weather conditions.
Skógafoss was an even more impressive sight to behold:
This photo offers a sense of scale:
Skógafoss has a 520-step rickety iron staircase that you can climb to see the falls from the top. So we headed on up and got a little cardio in in the process. And the sky began to clear once we began our descent.
From there, we drove about an hour and fifteen minutes to a spot that John wanted to check out, Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon. The trail to the top is a pretty steep uphill walk, but it maybe only took us fifteen minutes. I was a little tired from all the stair climbing at our previous stop, but I didn’t mind the extra exercise after sitting in a car for much of the day.
And the view was totally worth the effort! We had driven past many beautiful landscapes already throughout the day. Yet for me, this canyon was the point at which it started to feel like we were on another planet, like we had finally reached the dreamy, otherworldly Iceland you always see in photos.
Years ago, Justin Bieber filmed a video here. Afterward, they had to temporarily close the area so that fans wouldn’t flock to the location, overrun, and damage the nature.
After visiting the canyon, we had about another hour and fifteen minute drive to our hotel. We drove through this area with some crazy-looking weather out in the distance, so we pulled off on a turnout to take some photos:
We also spotted a glacier for the first time, which meant we were nearing our hotel.
Finally, we reached our lodging for the next two nights: Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon. The hotel is a modern-looking structure plopped at the base of a hill. It feels like it cropped up in the middle of nowhere! But it’s a pretty good location for visiting the nearby glacier lagoons and Vatnajökull National Park.
It was 7pm by the time we dropped our bags off in our nicely appointed room, which had a lovely view of the vast expanse and the ocean way in the distance.
The room had a door that opened up to the field out front, where we often saw sheep and lambs grazing:
We were hungry after our long travel day, so we headed straight up to the hotel bar to grab dinner. I had a cocktail called the Belgingur, with pineapple infused vodka, blue curacao, lemon, and ginger syrup. It seemed strangely tropical until I remembered it was June, so the drink was indeed seasonally appropriate. And the blue color was meant to evoke glacier lagoon water.
For dinner we shared two platters: cheese and charcuterie (below), and meze (above). Everything was so good; it was exactly the meal we needed.
After dinner, we sat at the table with our Rick Steves Iceland guidebook and a list of nearby attractions that I had come up with, and planned our itinerary for the next day. We purchased tickets for an activity the next morning and finally called it a night.
Day Five
The next morning, I snacked in the room and John grabbed a quick hotel breakfast. We had booked a 9:10am Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon boat tour and needed to arrive 20 minutes prior to check in.
We chose the amphibian boat rather than the Zodiac tour, which uses a smaller vessel. That tour is also more expensive, though it lasts about an hour compared to the 30-40 minute amphibian tour.
The morning was chilly and misty, so we sat in our car with the heat on after checking in. When it was time to line up at the boat, we layered up and ventured out into the cold. I had on three layers with hoods, plus a hat. I wore all three hoods over the hat; I was chilly the whole time, but the ride was short enough that it wasn’t a big deal.
The boat captain drove to the lagoon and into the water as our tour guide offered information about the glacier, lagoon, and icebergs. What a cool activity this was—there probably aren’t many places on earth where you can tour a lagoon filled with icebergs!
Some of the icebergs were so big! The amphibian boat can’t get too close to them because 90% of the bergs are under the surface. The smaller vessels can get a little closer (and they offer kayak tours of the lagoon as well).
Our tour guide brought a chunk of ice onto the boat for us all to hold and pass around:
The guide had an ice pick and offered to chip off a piece of the iceberg for people to taste if they wanted. We declined, but others on the tour took her up on it. (The water in Iceland is generally quite safe to drink…I drank tap water the entire trip.)
We also saw a couple seals in the lagoon! I don’t have any photos of them that are good enough to share here.
It’s pretty awesome to be able to see icebergs up close. I love the variety in color! The tour guide explained that blue ice is older ice that’s been compressed, while white ice is newer and black ice contains volcanic ash.
After the boat tour concluded, we warmed up in the gift shop/cafe, then drove across the street to the parking lot for Diamond Beach. Which is a stunning natural feature!
Pieces of icebergs from the glacier lagoon flow out of the lagoon, down a small stream, and out to sea, where they end up washing up on the black volcanic sand beach. Diamond Beach is likely one of the most unique sights that you can witness on our planet.
How cool is this place?! Some of the iceberg chunks are quite small, while others are basically human-sized.
I was still pretty cold from our boat tour, so we didn’t stay at Diamond Beach for super long. After our morning adventure, I was ready to return to the hotel and rest. The long day prior had worn me out!
While I rested in the hotel, John went out for a solo hike.
After napping and grabbing a cappuccino from the hotel bar, I went out to wander the trail right next to our hotel. The area was filled with pretty purple Alaskan Lupine, which you may already have spotted in several of my photographs. This flower smells so good!
A small waterfall called Grófarlækjarfoss was located next to the hotel driveway, so I walked over to check it out:
The weather was sunny and relatively warm, so I spent a little time wandering the trail a bit to get some steps in. John returned from his hike just as I was finishing up. He loved the hike so much that he suggested we do it together the next morning.
That evening we had a dinner reservation at our hotel’s restaurant. Beforehand, we grabbed a happy hour drink in the lobby bar. Then we headed upstairs for a lovely dinner, which started off with bread and this butter topped with lava salt:
I don’t like meat or fish, but fortunately many restaurants in Iceland are vegetarian and vegan friendly. For my dinner I ordered this King Trumpet Mushroom vegan entree, which was really good.
We ended our evening with another drink in the bar, then decided to call it a night.
Day Six
The next morning, we skipped hotel breakfast and snacked so we could leave early for our hike. We were on a time crunch because hotel check-out time was 11am, so we needed to return before then. The trailhead for Múlagljúfur Canyon was a 20 minute drive from our hotel, and when we arrived there were just two camper vans in the parking lot. Perfect!
It was another cool, misty morning but we warmed up quickly as we hiked the trail that John had done the day before. We used the hiking poles that we bought in Chamonix, and they were VERY helpful.
This hike was close to two miles to the lookout point at which we stopped (though you can hike the trail further). Once we got to this point, we were rewarded for our effort:
On the hike up, we only encountered two people, a Canadian couple who took the above photograph of us. It was so, so amazing to have the trail completely to ourselves for the ascent. We did begin encountering ascending hikers as we made our way down. Early birds FTW!
I think my very favorite photo from the entire trip is the one I put at the top of this post, which is a view from our Múlagljúfur Canyon hike. It. Is. Unbelievable.
Look at this freaking view!
Look at that gorgeous blue water at the base of the foss:
Here’s a photo of John that shows the scale of the place:
Squint even harder and you may see sheep on the cliffside below. They’re basically three tiny dots (one black, two white) in the lower center portion of the pic. I can really only see them by zooming in on the pic on my phone.
Our hike back down took less time, because we wanted to make sure we got back to the hotel in time for checkout. And we didn’t do as much gawking and stopping to take photos.
We made it back to the hotel in time to finish packing our stuff and check out. Then it was time to head back west on the Ring Road to our next hotel. Of course I took some photos along the way. Driving the southern Ring Road is never boring; it seems as if the landscape shifts every ten or fifteen minutes.
Lómagnúpur Mountain was very striking:
Our next location, Hotel Klaustur, was just over an hours’ drive west of the Fosshotel. We arrived before check-in time, but our room was ready so they kindly let us check in early. The room was spacious and nicely decorated:
I needed some rest time after our big morning hike, which took about two hours to hike close to four miles. So I laid down while John went out for lunch and to explore the small town of Kirkjubæjarklaustur.
In the afternoon, we drove about ten minutes from our hotel to the viewing trail for the Eldhraun lava field. We passed by this area on our initial drive east to Fosshotel, but we wanted to stop and marvel at it in person. The vast lava field is another one of those natural features of Iceland that makes you feel like you’ve left Planet Earth:
The lava moss field is roped off and you are not allowed to walk on it (ahem, Justin Bieber). The fragile moss takes about a hundred years to grow. So if you visit, make sure you stick to the short pedestrian trail.
After visiting the lava field, we went to a waterfall near our hotel called Stjórnarfoss:
Dinnertime was approaching, so we cleaned up and went to the nicely decorated hotel lobby bar for a cocktail:
Then we enjoyed a really lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant. Look at this date butter…omg, it was so good! The dates lent a nice sweetness to the creamy butter.
To start, we shared delicious mushroom arancini with vegan aioli:
When I saw burrata on the menu I had to have it. The creamy ball of cheese was served atop tomatoes and citrus. So good!
For dessert we got a blueberry skyr panna cotta, which was gorgeous and tasted incredible:
We had a glass of wine in the lobby after dinner while plotting the next day’s agenda. Then we went to bed after another long but satisfying day.
I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to see what “middle of the night sky” looked like at this time of year. I took this photo at 2:54am:
Day Seven
Another travel day! We had a great hotel breakfast (Hotel Klaustur knows what they’re doing when it comes to food), then completed our packing, checked out, and began the day’s adventures.
First stop: Gígjagjá, aka the Yoda Cave! This cave is located on a black sand beach about a 45 minute drive west of Hotel Klaustur. You can see why the cave received its nickname:
See that gray line running along the bottom of the photo? There was a crew of men laying out cables along the beach. A week after our trip, I saw on Reddit that Christopher Nolan was filming a movie in this spot. How cool!
You can see the Yoda shape even better from inside the cave:
We didn’t linger for very long here because it was overcast, cold, windy, and misty. From there, we drove about ten minutes to the town of Vik for a rest stop at the Icewear shopping center. Our timing couldn’t have been better, because it started absolutely pouring rain as soon as we got there.
The Icewear store is large with a ton of fun stuff to browse, so we spent awhile inside while waiting out the storm. I bought a couple souvenirs and impulse purchased a cheap plastic poncho since it was very wet outside and a couple beaches were next on our agenda. We also bought a few things at the Krónan grocery mart inside the shopping complex.
When the rain let up, we headed out for a short drive to Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach. The beach features basalt columns, a cave, an Atlantic Ocean view, and the Reynisdrangar rock formations. But we didn’t get to explore, because by the time we arrived at the parking lot, high wind gusts had arrived.
I had read about the dangers of Icelandic wind; gusts can be so intense that drivers are advised to park their cars pointed into the wind. And to open car doors with both hands. Why? Because wind gusts can be so strong that they’ll rip car doors right off the hinges.
This particular south coast beach also has what are referred to as “sneaker waves.” Visitors shouldn’t get too close to the water, and should never turn their back on the ocean here. The waves may not look super strong, but they can surprise attack and carry people off into the water.
Anyway, the wind gusts were so strong that I found it hard to walk without getting pushed around by the wind. I put on the cheap poncho before getting out of the car and ended up battling with it in the wind. It basically turned into a dry cleaner garment bag that was trying to suffocate me. The wind also took my hat right off my head and I didn’t even notice. Fortunately, another tourist pointed it out and John ran to grab my hat before the wind took it out to sea.
Snapping photos was tricky because the wind was so strong I was afraid it would rip my iPhone right out of my hands. So I only took one photo at Reynisfjara. I didn’t make it farther than this point before deciding to return to the relative safety of the car:
I hid in the car, listening to the wind howl while John went out onto the sand a bit. He didn’t even go into the cave that you see above on the left. Conditions were iffy so we played it safe and didn’t stay very long.
After the black sand beach, we drove to nearby Dyrhólaey Promontory. Being so close, the conditions were about the same as at Reynisfjara, though with a bit of sleet for some added spice.
I was able to handle the wind slightly better here, but it was still a struggle to walk because the wind was either pushing or pulling me based on its direction. At this point I was annoyed by the sleet slashing at my face, but I was also laughing at how ridiculous it all was. Even with the extreme elements, the place is so beautiful:
A beach in grayscale:
Here I am simply trying to stay upright in the wind gusts at Dyrhólaey:
My hiking pants and rain jacket weren’t waterproof enough to handle this type of weather. I ended up a little damp in the car afterward, but the car had seat heaters so that was helpful. For a return trip to Iceland, I’ll need some better gear.
After the perfect beach experience, we continued west and then north toward our next destination. Here’s another pretty spot that I captured along the drive:
Congratulations on finishing this post! This one was an epic length, so I’ll leave it there and pick up with the remainder of day seven in my third and final vacation recap post. Stay tuned!
