This was the first two days of a 28 day trip I took in July across Europe.
Photos are at: http://www.pbase.com/annforcier/iceland
Iceland Air has just about the lowest prices from the northeast US to Europe and allows you to add a stopover, as long as you like, for no additional cost. So I decided it would be worth a couple of days to see the highlights. I flew JFK to Reykjavik (then two days later on to London, returned at the end of my vacation from Amsterdam to Boston with a change in Reykjavik). The flight from New York to Reykjavik is only five hours long (once you get up in the air, which at JFK took almost an hour on the runway). Halfway through the flight, at about 1 am I was awoken by a very bright beam of light – the rising sun!
I landed at 6:15 on June 23, one day past ‘mid-summer’. (which is a huge deal in the Scandinavian countries)
Reykjavik airport (actually Kefljavik) is small but modern and clearly set up for connecting flights, hardly anyone exited. But Greyline bus was waiting (I had reserved the ticket on line) and the ride to city was about 45 minutes . The landscape is rocky and barren with some hills in the distance. Almost no trees. Lots of blue wildflowers (Lupine, could see them as we were landing even).
Hotel Fron – Laugavegur 22A, www.hotelfron.is (€121) Very modern. Room was of course not ready at 8am but they told me to have complimentary breakfast and I could check in around 9:30. The double room was very large and clean. Had a kitchenette with microwave, fridge and two burner stove top, TV with CNN. The breakfast was the usual – bread (toaster), cheese, meat, yogurt, juice and coffee. It was fine. The hotel is on the ‘main street’- a pedestrianized shopping street that is no wider than most American driveways. Five minute walk from just about any place in central Reykjavik.
Reykjavik is tiny – I had checked into the hotel by 9:30 and was out exploring by 10. I’d walked all over the city center including around the ‘lake’, went to the top of the bell tower, and had a hot dog all by noon. The church is a modern Viking inspired white concrete building that looks like a space ship and the view was pretty good. (600isk to take the lift). The houses in Iceland are built of steel and concrete (to withstand earthquakes) sided in corrugated metal – some of which are painted but the roofs (also metal) are the most colorful. So the view from above is more interesting than from street level. The architecture is pretty boring – basically squares, like monopoly houses. There are a few tallish (maybe 20 stories) apartment or office buildings and a couple of older (early 1900s) churches and municipal buildings. There is a big modern shiny glass concert hall by the harbor. But I have to say I was under-impressed. Not cute enough to be quaint, not old enough to be charming. Although a third of Iceland’s entire population lives in the capital (mostly in the sprawl surrounding the center) it wouldn’t even be a small city anywhere else (population about 100,000, but it feels much smaller). The vast majority of shops are touristy and most stuff is pretty expensive – mostly Icelandic woolens and tourist trinkets.
I had lunch at the city’s most famous ‘restaurant’ (Bill Clinton ate there, there’s even a photo of him eating there) – which is a hot dog stand down by the harbor. I will say the hot dogs were very good (with fresh and fried onion bits and mustard) and reasonably priced (with Coke it was 500isk or about 4€).
There is a lake in the center of city – really just a pond – but it has lots of ducks and geese and swans and flowers around it and is pleasant enough. At least in good weather – and apparently this is as good as it gets here – about 12-13C and mix of sun and clouds. The harbor has a couple of huge rusty whaling ships, a few smaller more modern whale watching boats, and an assortment of boats taking tourists on other excursions – to islands to see the Puffins, etc. You can get a tour to take you anywhere – on water to islands, bicycle tours, tours that include horseback riding, and of course the golden circle tour.
I had dinner at a semi fast food restaurant near the main square. Fish and chips and small salad – it was really good and only about 12€ (1990 isk). Definitely fresh. Came with a kind of special sauce that was really good. So good I ate there again the next night.
Iceland: The classic two day stopover trip
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isabel - the reference to Iceland caught my eye as we spent a couple of weeks there a few years ago.
it certainly sounds like a unique trip!
BYW, i agree with you about Reykjavik. the best thing about it was the National museum - did you get there?
nice pics, BTW!
Hi ann - I came across some of your posts when planning this trip. There certainly weren't a lot of posts compared to places like Italy! Hopefully those of us who do make it to Iceland post reports to help people considering it. I usually love cities, but for Iceland certainly the best part was the Golden Circle tour.
Day 2: Iceland Golden Circle Tour
Mostly cloudy all day – high around 13C. Too bad as blue sky would have been nice for the Golden Circle Tour. I did get lucky in terms of a tour guide (there are two companies offering the exact same tour, I used Greyline as it was less expensive and there was no difference in where it went, in fact we saw the other companies buses at all the places we stopped.) Dee Dee our tour guide was very personable, funny, a wonderful singer, and she had unlimited bits of trivia about Iceland.
The landscape of Iceland is mostly brown with distant volcanic hills and further off some larger mountains. Lots of snow visible in the distance. Just after you leave Reykjavik there is a huge pipeline running alongside the road - it carries hot water to Reykjavik. Apparently when it comes out of the ground it is over 700 degrees hot so even though it cools off a bit on the trip it’s still hot tap water when it gets there. There is so much of it they pipe it under the streets of the city to melt the snow so they don’t have to plow or shovel. Driving around you can see ‘hot spots’ where steam is escaping the ground. Mostly these are dug and there is a huge power plant where most of it comes from (we saw that at the end of the tour). They send some of the hot water to the city for hot water and use the rest of it as steam to generate electricity. So Iceland is mostly entirely renewable energy.
Then we stopped at the National Park (Thingvellir [Þingvellir]) which is a UNESCO site but mostly for it cultural heritage (the first parliament in the world met there in 900) and geologic significance – the European and American ‘plates’ come together there and you can see the fault line which gets bigger each time there is an earthquake. There’s a little church and some buildings reflected in a pond but otherwise not especially scenic. The landscape here is similar to the rest we saw – mostly brown, up close there are some fields of wild Alaskan Lupine which are very pretty (it was imported from Alaska years ago but has taken over large areas, but it’s nice to look at and it’s not like they are using the land for much else anyway).
The only trees native to Iceland are less than 6 feet tall – guess that’s why not much is built of wood. Most of the buildings in the cities are built of earthquake resistant steel and concrete and covered with corrugated iron which holds up to the brutal winter weather better than other sidings.
After that we visited Gullfoss Waterfall – not quite Niagara Falls, but reasonably impressive (lunch at the tourist café/gift shop there), and the ‘Geyser’ area where the geyser (“Geiser”) which gave it’s name to all geysers is found. That one no longer erupts, it just sits there kind of steaming, but another one reliably goes off every ten minutes. The tour finished with a stop at a small lake in a volcanic crater.
The tour is 9-10 hours long. Back in Reykjavik the sun came out – and stayed out – all night!
Here’s the link to the rest of my trip: http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/from-iceland-to-slovenia-a-month-across-europe-photos-and-impressions.cfm
isabel: we did a stopover from Boston in 2005. We were picked up by Greyline (I think) and went directly to the Blue Lagoon and then to our hotel, the same as yours the Hotel Fron. We liked the hotel as well. We only stayed one night. It was late March and cold and spitting snow. We also did the church tower and walked all around the town. We ate at a very odd Thai/Icelandic restaurant that also doubled as a karaoke spot. It was an interesting experience that we wouldn't have done had we not had the stopover possibility. We have since flown on Icelandair but not done the stopover.
hi isabel - i agree entirely about the golden circle being one of the best bits of Iceland. in fact there are a load of really good waterfalls, including one you can walk behind which is always fun.
and isn't it funny how light it is at midnight? weird!
Thanks for your report and pics. I've always wanted to go to Iceland.
We had 2 days in Reykjavik and 1 in Akureyi as part of a cruise in July and loved it, the Golden Circle and glacier tour was the highlight of the whole cruise. With such good deals on Iceland Air, am now looking at 4-5 days next spring to catch the Northern Lights, hopefully it'll work out
Any ideas here for cooking classes or other culinary related tours/activities while in Reykjavik? I'm trying to find something for an upcoming trip, but it's not proving to be as easy as I had hoped. Any suggestions are welcome from those in the know!
Kyliebaby - I think you'll be lucky to find any foodie activities in Reykjavik to be honest - the cuisine is not something you go to Iceland for,IMO. [I've had arguments with other posters about this before but you can only eat as you find].
i can recommend the cafe at the National museum of Iceland, and the museum itself - a really good way of spending 2 hours or so - and the cafe was also pretty good.
That's great! Thanks Annhig
Isabel, I will be in Iceland for 1 day on a trans atlantic cruise next year. I enjoyed hearing about your experience. I was so happy to see your photos. They are wonderful!, what kind of camera do you use?
hpeabody - Thanks. Will you be doing the golden circle tour when you are there? I use a Panasonic FZ150 camera. The photos would have been even better had the sun been out more! What time of year are you going?
Isabel, I will be going a little past mid September next year, I am really excited
I am on a cruise, so limited time in port. I plan to do the National Park and waterfall part of the golden circle that is offered as an excursion.
I plan to do the National Park and waterfall part of the golden circle that is offered as an excursion.>>
these excursions typically go to the pthingvellir [excuse spelling] park, the geyers, and Gulfoss water fall. the lamb soup at the cafe at the top of the waterfall is pretty good, though when we were there there was an american grumbling about soup costing $10. [that was just before the crash so it should be cheaper now]. we didn't do an excursion but went to see the golden circle independently and had a great day. Walking along the chasm between the two tectonic plates was a big thrill.
have a great trip!