Feb 12, 2018: Wrapping up Reykjavik

The weather cleared up by Monday morning so we had breakfast in the room again, packed new sandwiches, and then headed out to the bus stop by 9:30am to catch the shuttle to our Golden Circle tour. We were at the main bus station and on our tour bus by the time it headed out at 10:30am.

The drive was beautiful, the sun was out and the morning sky was clear and the scenery was stunning. I didn't want to miss a minute of it, but Kat hadn't slept well the night before as per her usual so she napped a bit on the way there and back. Our tour guide was an older gentleman, a retired physics teacher with a broken rib, who kept up a fairly constant and dry narrative that taught us everything we needed to know about Iceland's history, geology, horticulture, and socio-economical underpinnings. The time just flew by.

The first stop on our grand tour was Thingvellir National Park. It has a rich history as the birthplace of Icelandic nationhood and seemed to be a favorite of our guide in particular. It is also notable for being along the path of where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. Kat stood astride a narrow fissure with one foot on each of the two plates and I took her picture. The fissure quickly widens and becomes a narrow gully and then a massive cliff face looking out over an icy lake. It was breathtakingly beautiful but we only had a half-hour to spend there until we had to be back on the bus. It was far too short a stay.

Our second stop was Geysir hot spring area. The area was dotted with many small hot springs and was home to at least two major geysers. The oldest and most renowned, Old Geysir, had stopped erupting some time ago, but it was still impressive to look at. The smaller yet active geyser sprayed an impressive amount of steam into the air every few minutes. It smelled of egg-farts everywhere. We had about an hour to wander around before getting back on the bus so we took our time and ate most of our packed lunches at the cantina.

The last stop of the tour was at Gullfoss, or Golden Falls. I really didn't know what to expect and so my mind was blown when we finally got to the viewing area. It was massive and awe-inspiring. We walked along the overlook and I took way too many pictures, but none of them do it justice. There was a hugely long line for the stairs leading down to the base of the falls, which was hardly moving at all, so we did not get a chance to get any closer, which is a shame. We also learned while we were there that our Northern Lights tour for that evening had been canceled due to expected cloud cover so I was doubly disappointed. We decided we would just have to come back again some time and get another chance at both.

On the trip back we passed through some small communities that focused on greenhouse agriculture, many horse farms, and several Summer houses, one of which was own by our guide. We got back to the main bus station by 6pm and got a refund for our Northern Lights tour, since we would not be able to reschedule it. We didn't bother mentioning to the attendant that we'd gotten a discount on our booking when we were refunded the full amount.

Since we found ourselves ahead of the game we decided to splurge on dinner that night after we stopped briefly at the apartment. Our guidebook suggested the restaurant at the Borg Hotel for fine dining and an authentic Icelandic experience, but when we got there it had apparently changed ownership and now was called Jamie's and served Italian cuisine. That suited us just fine in any case and dinner turned out to be just fine.

After dinner we decided to go have soak at a nearby outdoor geothermic pool. Along the walk we wandered by a really neat looking cemetery and I stopped to take a few pics. Our soak in the pool was relaxing and just what we needed to bookend our stay in Reykjavik.