Sometimes it pays to complain. Danielle was gone for a week for work in February, and I lamented one evening that we needed some quality time without the kids. I'm not sure who brought up the idea, but it was proposed that a trip with just the two of us was in order. I seized on the opportunity and asked where she would want to go, and Iceland came out as the favorite. After rave reviews from my Uncle Jim about the Intrepid tour company, I decided it would be a great opportunity to take my first group tour as an adult of almost 40 to the remote island in the North Atlantic. Seven days later, I had the tour booked and Icelandic currency in my hands. The seven year overseas travel hiatus was officially over.
Iceland is no longer the novel excursion it used to be. The eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010 is when the tourism boom started. The publicity from the volcanic eruption coupled with a weak currency following the 2008 financial collapse meant that Iceland was a beautiful destination that could be visited for less money than other exotic places. After a brief dip due to COVID, travel surged back to surpass pre-pandemic levels. In 2010, there were only 489,000 tourists annually, a figure that ballooned to over 2 million in 2023. With only one international airport, that means that flights from different parts of the world are staggered. Flights from the Eastern seaboard of the United States leave around 7:30 PM. The flight to Reykjavik was only 5.5 hours, and a five hour time change meant we arrived around 6:30 AM the next day. I got about an hour and a half of sleep and Danielle got only about 30 minutes, but with six days, there was no time to waste. We consumed caffeine and set off on the first day in the capital city. We dropped off our bags at the hotel, and then started to walk towards the shoreline as the sun rose around 9:30 AM. Our first stop was the Sun Voyager statue, and we got there with beautiful lighting in the background.
Danielle at the Sun Voyager as the sun rises
After that, we walked to see the Harpa Concert Hall, easily one of the most iconic buildings in the city.
A cup of coffee to greet the sunrise
Our next stop was the Lava Show. In 2010, an Icelandic couple in the town of Vik, Iceland thought that it would be cool to show tourists the lava flows in a controlled environment. Lava Show was born. It took the couple seven years to get the setup right, testing numerous angles for the lava flow, the temperature for the lava, and the amount to release. We learned that one particular mistake happened where the lava flowed out way too fast, spilled over the basin, and destroyed part of the floor. By 2017, they had the formula perfected and finally opened. This one hour presentation gave a history of the major volcanic eruptions in Iceland and the reasons why Iceland is one of the most active volcanic spots on the planet. Over a thousand years ago, a volcanic fissure opened up that was so large that the Icelandic settlers gave the area the name "fire canyon." The Laki eruption lasted for eight months starting in June 1783 and the ash reduced global temperature by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius for two years. The eruption released 42 billion tons of lava and killed about 20 percent of the island's population. This eruption is thought to be an accelerant for the French Revolution. After the presentation, we got to see volcanic sand that had been heated to over 2,000 degrees fahrenheit released in a controlled lava flow. We learned that the lava is only 45 percent silica, known as tachylite, and therefore is much more fragile than the 90 percent silica used in glass making and the 80 percent silica found in obsidian which has been used to make tools and weapons. Although volcanic glass forms, it is very brittle and easily breaks apart.
The lava strands are known as "Pele's hair" named after the Hawaiian volcano deity, Pele
The underside of the magma with a cooled outer layer and liquid inner layer
The magma with the lights on
We wanted to kill some time before we went to our next stop, so we went into the Maritime Museum. It was okay, but it definitely wasn't worth a visit if you come to Reykjavik. The visual displays were great, but the true marker of a great museum is the details on the information placards and there just wasn't much to learn in this museum.
The ocean currents around Iceland
Salted fish
Our next stop was a lark that ended up being incredibly educational. An Icelandic man named Sigurður Hjartarson was a teaching headmaster. One day, he received a whale penis as a joke from one of his teachers who had a summer job at the whaling station. This became an ongoing joke and other teachers started to gift the headmaster whale penises after their stint at the whaling station. He decided to turn the joke on its head (pun intended) and collect penises from different species throughout the world. He was also gifted various historical phallic artifacts as the museum grew in size (pun not intended). While I expected a few laughs, I learned an incredible amount about different mating rituals for numerous species.
Out in front of the museum
The famous American, Doc Holliday, used a cane made from a bulls penis
Poor hamsters
Jimi Hendrix had his penis cast in plaster by an artist named Cynthia Albritton
A watering can from the Moche tribe of Northern Peru
A completely understandable first impression
We arrived back at the hotel, checked into the room, and were able to get in a three hour nap before the welcome meeting with our tour group. Our guide took us to an amazing restaurant called Potturinn Og Panan for dinner. I had an incredible lobster bisque, salmon entree, and a delicious chocolate cake for dessert.
Delicious dessert
Iceland gets most of its heat from geothermal, i.e. volcanic, activity. I wasn't expecting this, but it immediately made sense when I turned on the shower that the water smelled of rotten eggs, a smell indicative of sulfur. Although the shower was refreshing, it was admittedly hard to feel completely clean with that smell present.
Day 2 was a tour of the Reykjanes peninsula with stops at the bridge between the North American and Eurasian continent, the site where Will Farrell played the piano in the movie "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga," the Gunnuhver hot springs, and Strandarkirkja Church. The Church had a very cool elf village on the side. Elves are mythical creatures thought to exist by about a third of the island's population, they are also sometimes referred to as the hidden people.
The fissure between continents
Piano keyboard solo
Hafnarberg Sea-cliffs
A man's maturity never progresses beyond the age of 12
Scenic viewpoint
Delicious mid-afternoon snack of blueberry ice cream
The Strandarkirkja Church
An Icelandic elf village near the church
Day 3 took us to the Gullfoss waterfall, Strokkur Geyser, and Fludir Secret Lagoon. The waterfall was beautiful but the strong wind and rain meant that I didn't stay out of the bus long to enjoy the spectacle. The Strokkur Geyser was very much a tourist trap. The surest sign of a tourist trap is an actual sign warning you of pickpockets. Plus, if you've seen one geyser, you've seen them all. The only picture I took at the geyser was not the geyser itself but a souvenir I found in the gift shop. The last stop was the Secret Lagoon hot springs which was incredibly relaxing. I've determined that in my middle age, I'm very much a hot springs person.
The Gullfoss waterfall
The pepper has been gradually replaced with salt
This mug spoke to me (the geyser didn't)
Group photo
Our dinner was in a recreated Viking long house at the restaurant, Ingolfsskali. We had a wonderful dinner of baked golden cheese, fried duck confit, and a caramel brownie.
A wooden carving on the door of the restaurant
Skol!
I booked the trip in February with the knowledge that this was one of the best years in awhile for chances of seeing the Northern Lights. I knew that seeing them depended on a LOT of things and one of those things was clear skies. With seven days of rain in the forecast the day before the trip, I thought our chances were slim to none. I kept an eye on the data and realized that on Day 3, we had a one hour period from 9 to 10 PM that had a KP index above 5 and clear skies. My none chance became a slim chance. Our group was out to dinner and the dinner was going into hour three. I excused myself from the table at exactly 9 PM and went outside to search. Kathy eventually went out and held up her camera to reveal the tiniest green sliver. It was technically the Northern Lights, but it was very anticlimactic. You couldn't see it with the naked eye and it was faint on camera.
When we had our fill after 15 minutes, our tour guide started to drive us back. Someone looked out the window on a dark road, and the Northern Lights were visible out the window WITHOUT a camera. We pulled over and were treated to a dance of green and red light in beautiful photos. We even saw not one but TWO shooting stars. I went from despondence to elation. We had finally seen the Northern Lights.
The forecast the day we arrived
There it is!
Dances of green with hints of red in the passing cloud
Lights in the form of a hand
A vivid green
On the way back to the hotel, our tour guide Siggy decided to play Queen's "We Are the Champions" on full volume, and we all sang with reckless abandon. We had seen something that had seemed so out of reach, and we celebrated our moment with style. Alice and Kristen stayed up after we got back and hung out with another tour group from the United States. One of the tour group attendees was a guy who dresses up as Santa Clause for the holidays in New Jersey, and he brought his outfit and was actually wearing it at the bar. As they chatted late that night, the aurora peaked out one more time and they got the below photo. This may be my favorite photo in the history of all time because it LOOKS like a cheap Santa photo from a mall with a green screen in the background, but this is completely real. I joked with them that no one would believe this photo.
I guess Santa brought these two the Northern Lights for Christmas
Day 4 started with visits to the Seljalandsfoss Waterfall and Skogafoss Waterfall. The rain was coming down hard and the wind was blowing at 23 miles per hour. I requested "Waterfalls" by TLC en route to our destination, and Siggy obliged.
Our place in the world
The Seljalandsfoss Waterfall was massive and we got drenched between the rain from above and the wind blowing the waterfall towards us. The waterfall is supposed to be a loop where you enter on the right and exit on the left, but the wind was blowing so hard that many decided to turn back instead of exiting through the left side. Not us. We ran over the rocky trail through the spray, and it was the coolest one hundred feet of trail running I've ever done. Thankfully I had my Marine Corps issue Jungle boots so even though my feet got a little wet, they dried quickly.
At the base of the falls
Behind the waterfall
The Skogafoss Waterfall had a staircase with 500 stairs to the top, and our guide said we only had thirty minutes at this stop. A few of my tour mates and I decided we were up for the challenge. We made it up the stairs in ten minutes and celebrated with the obligatory picture. I'm an avid trail runner, but I haven't worked out for two months because of a long case of COVID followed by strep throat, pneumonia, and a broken toe (those last three all happened the week before the trip). I was absolutely huffing and puffing by the time I made it to the top, but it was great to finally run again.
At the top of the waterfall
The stairs were definitely steep
Our last stop for the day was Reynisfjara Beach in Southern Iceland. This beach is famous because it has sneaker waves which will occur every ten to twenty minutes. People who get hit by these waves are often taken out to sea and with the temperature of Icelandic water, usually die. Siggy warned us to not pass him on the beach, and we obliged.
The black sand was actually black pebbles
Danielle in front of the unique rock formations
The rocks form columns like this because as the lava flows consistently towards the ocean, it cools the magma into these columnar shapes
One of the best parts of traveling is the random facts learned while in the country. I do a LOT of research on any country before I get there, so I'm often not caught off guard by much because the research beforehand is half the fun. While in Iceland, I learned that former World Champion chess player, Bobby Fischer, spent the last three years of his life in Selfoss, Iceland. His life is fascinating, and I won't do it justice here, but he became one of the youngest world champions at the age of 29. This stop was most certainly NOT on the tour, but Siggy allowed me to stop for a moment since it was on the way back to the hotel. The museum literally closed the minute we got there, but I didn't want to delay my tour mates, so I just snapped a quick picture for posterity.
His museum
The last day of our tour was spent at Thingvellir, Iceland's first national park. This park is significant because it is the spot where all the Icelandic tribes would convene once per year to settle disputes and establish laws. This was also the site where the Icelandic people declared their independence from Denmark in 1944. We walked from the visitor center about a mile to enjoy the view of Öxarárfoss waterfall as the sun momentarily peaked through the clouds. I knew that I didn't have a lot of time, so I decided to run a half mile to the top of the waterfall and back to get a great view.
Siggy, our wonderful guide
The Lake
The Icelandic flag blowing strongly in the 25 mph wind
The sun peaks through
Öxarárfoss Falls
Our tour ended at 2 PM and everyone parted ways. It was my first tour group as an adult, and our group was honestly fantastic. We had a great guide in Siggy and everyone was in great spirits the whole time despite the torrential wind and rain we sometimes experienced. I would definitely recommend Intrepid Travel to anyone looking for a getaway without the stress (that's my honest opinion, they didn't pay me to say that). After checking into our last hotel, I walked thirty minutes to the Perlan Museum which has a planetarium show about auroras, exhibits on the geology of Iceland, and even an ice cave you can walk through. Given that our glacier tour was cancelled due to avalanche concerns, this was a great consolation prize.
The Arctic fox, Iceland's only native terrestrial animal species
A beautiful piece of Silica Dioxide (Chalcedony)
I entered the ice cave about an hour before the museum closed, so I had it all to myself. Using my wallet and the timer function on my camera, I was able to craft this ridiculous portrait by propping the phone up on the ground.
Are you not entertained?
The last full day in Reykjavik was spent eating at spots recommended by our tour mates, Bill and Kathy, at places like Brauð & Co for pastries, Icelandic hot dogs at Bæjarins Beztu, and lobster soup at Seabaron.
Danielle with the Icelandic pastry, kanilsnúður, at Brauð & Co
Icelandic hot dog
Lobster soup
We also got to see the famous Hallgrimskirkja cathedral, a structure where the pillars resemble the cooled lava columns, and the National Museum of Iceland. I would highly recommend both, especially going up to the Bell Tower to see the city view, just don't go when the bells ring at the 15 minute increments.
Leif Erikson in the foreground, a gift from the United States in 1930 to celebrate the 1000th year anniversary of the Icelandic settlement
A stroll down Rainbow Street with the cathedral in the background
A drinking horn carved in 1598
Icelandic people walking through Thingvellir gorge to attend their declaration of Independence in June 1944
Saint Olav, a previous king of Norway, shown here with his foot on the devil for suppression of Paganism
A Viking depiction of Jesus Christ from 1200 AD
Viking remains
Similar to Costa Rica and Thailand, Iceland has a very sophisticated tourism infrastructure. Unlike those locations, they had to create a tourism industry from scratch quickly which makes it all the more impressive. Other than our amazing tour guide and tour mates, the highlight of the trip was definitely the food. Danielle remarked that we rarely get to have a quiet meal together, and we had a grand total of 21 meals together on this trip. Almost every meal was fantastic, and we got to have everything from Icelandic to Indonesian cuisine. As odd as it sounds, Iceland reminds me a lot of New Orleans - the terrain is treacherous, the weather is harsh, but the people and cuisine leave indelible memories. Although it's hard to say goodbye to Iceland, I'm taking Ethan for his eighth birthday on his first big trip with just him and I to Iceland's neighbors to the East: Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Stay tuned, more to come in March 2025.
This featured blog entry was written by mbeymer from the blog The Whole Story.
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