Expected weather: Hi 52F, Rainy

Population: 138,875 (city) / 248,000 (Region) / 352,721

Disclosure: Writing this from my notes, pictures, and memory a couple of days after returning home.

Another 8am start with Your Day Tours again, this time for the famous “Golden Circle” tour. Per YDT’s website description: we stop at all the main places: Geysir geothermal area, Gullfoss waterfall and Þingvellir National Park, the place where you can see the American and Eurasian tectonic plates pulling apart. We also have an extra stop at the beautiful waterfall Faxi.

Yep! More waterfalls, please!

Today, we were the last pick-up for our YDT driver and were on a slightly larger minibus than yesterday. Turned out that when they combined the four of us for today, the smaller buses came up a seat short! So, we had 21 people on a 30-passenger bus. Keith and Paula were first on and saved us the seats behind the driver and they took the seats directly across. Our driver/guide today was Rebecca, an enthusiastic 25-year-old from Italy, who has been in Iceland for two years. With the tourism boom, Iceland has more jobs than the native population can handle, so they are getting quite an influx of immigrants to fill those jobs. When Rebecca picked us up, she immediately apologized that the wi-fi on the bus wasn’t currently working but said she would keep trying to get it operational at the first restroom stop. As this was a new bus, its setup was different from the ones she’d been driving. She said she grew up on a farm and could fix an old tractor, but technology was a challenge! And everyone thinks all the “young people” these days know all about all the technology! It took a couple of stops, but ultimately, Rebecca persevered and found a loose wire causing a disconnect with the system, fixed it and we had wi-fi the rest of the day. Amazing really – not that she fixed it, but that we had internet access almost everywhere we went.

Our comfort stop was at a little mall in Hveragerði (a town near a geothermal zone) with an interesting story – seems it is on the Atlantic rift and in 2008 a 6.3 magnitude earthquake created a crack through the middle of the mall. Instead of tearing it down, they put plexiglass over it and patched around it and created an earthquake exhibition!

Our drive on the Golden Circle route took us past Kerið Crater – a volcanic crater lake in Iceland that is fairly young, maybe 3000-6000 years old, which lends to the reddish color of the relatively speaking fresh iron deposits. We had not seen a landscape this red in our previous travels in Iceland. Some Golden Circle tours include this as a stop where you can hike down the crater to the lake.

Our first stop was the Faxi waterfall which is on private property. If I’m remembering the explanation correctly, only the waterfalls on public/government property are required to have “foss” (waterfall) in their name. This waterfall is also sometimes referred to as Faxafoss or just Faxa. It is 300 feet wide, but only has a fall of 23 feet. Along one side is a fish ladder and there is supposed to be excellent salmon fishing in this river. We did see an angler downstream. There were no huge crowds here, just a few other people besides our tour bus. It was overcast, so apparently a typical Icelandic September day!

Next, we went to Gullfoss (Golden Waterfall) from which the Golden Circle route gets its name. Gullfoss is another iconic Icelandic waterfall consisting of two stages. The top stage drops 36 feet, and the second stage drops another 69 feet. It truly is magnificent and impressive. The canyon walls surrounding Gullfoss rise 230 feet. As can be imagined, there were many more visitors here experiencing the rush of water originating from the glacier Langjökull and becoming the Hvítá river.

Next, we had a short visit at Myrkholt Farm where we went into a barn to see the Icelandic horses. I much preferred our serendipitous experience the previous day alongside the road. I think Dave and I were the only ones who had previously had an up-close with the horses, so it was an appreciated stop by everyone. As it was much colder today than I’d expected, seeing them inside the barn out of the wind was welcome, too. They seem to know exactly how to pose for photos!

Now, we headed back down the road a bit to Geysir, the first geyser known to Europeans and the origins of the English word “geyser”. The original Great Geysir used to erupt frequently spewing an incredible 300-560 feet in the air as measured in 1845. By around 1916, eruptions had all but stopped as earthquakes in the area impacted the chamber. The nearby geyser, Strokkur, erupts every few minutes but only reaches a height of 98 feet and is quickly over. Keith did manage to capture a couple of images which he shared with me (I was busy putting on my gloves and missed taking a picture myself!).  

This was our lunch stop as there are several restaurants and a visitors center here in this geothermal area. A couple of the guides had recommended the lamb soup here, so that’s what we went for. Again, the food here has not disappointed once you get over the sticker shock!

Our final stop of the day was the incredibly historic and geologically fascinating Þingvellir National Park. This is where the Atlantic Ocean ridge can best be seen. The Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are drifting apart at approximately 1 inch per year. Historically, this is the location where the Icelandic Parliament (Alþingi) met every summer for nearly 900 years to read the law, hold court cases, and make new laws. “Þingvellir” (Thingvellir) means assembly fields and became the first national park established in Iceland in 1928. It was mind-blowing to consider that we were walking between the two continents!

From Þingvellir, it was only about 45 minutes back to Reykjavik. We had Rebecca drop us off with Keith and Paula at the bus stop near their hotel about 8 hours after our pick-up. Their hotel is in the center city where busses aren’t allowed. We barely made it the couple of blocks to the hotel before the rain hit. We agreed to play another round or two of the card game 313 until the rain cleared. For dinner, we decided to go the famous hot dog stand as everyone visiting Reykjavik seems to do and the locals, too. Keith and Paula had gone there the previous night and said we had to do it, too, last chance! There was quite a line as the rain had cleared and it was Friday night, but since they only had a couple of options, the line moved quickly. We got ours all the way, why not? I liked the crunchy onions (on the bottom) and the mustards (yes, two) that they used (I really don’t like French’s yellow mustard but have learned to try others!).

As we walked back to their hotel, the vibe on the street was very different than a couple of days ago as it was Friday night! We caught a cab back to our hotel to finish packing for our return home the following day. Our trip was coming to an end.

I’ll finish our trip home and overall summary in another day or two! Time to do laundry and other chores now.