Golden Circle

 On the evening of Wednesday, July 27, 2023, we flew out of Minneapolis-St. Paul on Icelandair to Keflavik, arriving around 6:30 the next morning.  As usual we had only carry-on luggage, but as we checked in (on international flights to or from the U.S., you can't simply print out boarding passes and go to the gate--they need to see your passport at the check-in desk), they offered to check our big carry-ons to Iceland without charge, so we did that.  They made the same offer on our other Icelandair flights, and we didn't have any time constraints on arrival at Keflavik, Bergen or MSP, so, rather than fool around with getting our bags up and down, we agreed to that, too.  We were well aware, from past experience, that Icelandair does not think that a six-hour flight warrants feeding passengers gratis, so we brought some food along, having eaten something at Surdyk's Flights after going through security at MSP.

We had bought round-trip Flybus tickets from the airport to Reykjavik online.  After about a 40-minute ride to the Reykjavik bus terminal, we were directed to the Red shuttle bus, which took us to bus stop number 13, just up the street from our hotel, the Fosshotel Lind.  It being too early to check in (without paying a substantial extra fee), we left our bags and walked 10 minutes to breakfast at the highly-recommended Sandholt.  We had to wait in line, then, after ordering, wait for our food (shakshouka), but it was worth the wait.

We went to the Hallgrimskirkja, a very tall, modern church, and looked around, not going up to the top.

We did a little wandering, then went to bus stop 9 to wait for our noon pickup for the Arctic Adventures Golden Circle Afternoon tour.  The Golden Circle is the standard route to three major tourist attractions near Reykjavik: Thingvellir (a geological and historical site), Gullfoss (the country's most spectacular waterfall) and Geysir (the geyser field from which all geysers get their name).  Most Golden Circle tours take all day and involve other stops (horse rides, thermal baths, etc.).  The afternoon tour, taking less than six hours, was apparently designed for people like us, who had just gotten off an early plane and needed to fill time before going to bed at a reasonable local hour.

We had chosen Antarctic Adventures because it got good reviews and had the afternoon tour available for this date  We bought tickets in advance both for this tour and the next day's all-day South Coast tour.

Various tour and other buses were picking people up at stop 9 (which was just a few blocks from our hotel), but an Arctic Adventures minibus showed up around noon, and we met the driver-guide, who was Polish (he was congenial and informative, though his English was sometimes hard to understand) and went aboard.

After picking up people at other stops, we headed out into the country, a sparse land with relatively few trees or bushes.  Our first stop, after nearly an hour, was Thingvellir National Park.  Iceland was formed, and is still being built, by the welling-up of magma at one of the points where the North Atlantic and European plates are moving apart,  This is especially clear at Thingvellir, where a trench is widening, a tiny bit each year, between the plates.  The place is also important historically, as the spot where the Icelandic national assembly, the Althing, was founded in 930 and met until the 13th century.  We had about 40 minutes there to look around.

We got on the bus and drove another hour to Gullfoss ("Golden Falls"), which is truly spectacular.

On our way to Gullfoss, we had passed Geysir, so it was only a short drive back there.  Geysir itself, after which all geysers are named, has been dormant for many years, but in the same field are a number of other geysers, including Strokkur, which spouts reliably every ten or fifteen minutes.  While we were there, we saw it in action three or four times.  It is not Old Faithful, and for someone who has been to Yellowstone, the Geysir field might be considered boring.

We were dropped off at bus stop 9 before 6:00, and checked into our hotel, the priciest but not the nicest of the trip.  The room and bathroom were small and Ikeaish and breakfast was extra (2500 kroner, about twenty dollars, apiece).  There was traffic noise much of the night, such as the night was, since sunset was well after we went to bed and sunrise well before we got up.

The Polish guide had said that Iceland's cold tap water was great for drinking, but the hot tap water smelled strongly of sulphur.  That was true.  Reykjavik faucets are fed by two separate lines, one cold, the other, instead of coming from a water heater, piped in from geothermal springs.  Taking a hot shower means using very smelly water, so we kept our shower water relatively cool, mixing in more cold than hot water.

We went for dinner to Cafe Loki, across from the Hallgrimskirkja.  Mary Joy had steamed cod, while I had a very unusual smoked trout tart, along with a salad and a dish of rye bread ice cream (!).  It was all very good.