Landscape was rocks, rocks and more rocks!

Hotels - First night in Reykjavik was at Marriott’s 101 Hotel. The bathroom was large for a small room, but everything was modern, very clean and chic

Fireplace in the small lobby

With our guide Jokull - which means Glacier in Icelandic

The 3+ hr tour took us to 5 different restaurants & even a food kiosk in Reykjavik whilst walking around and taking in the key sights in the small city of 136000 people (Iceland only has 380000 population). 85% lives within 1 hr radius of the city.

We dined on starters, mains, kiosk food as well as ice cream. The places we ate at included:

1. Fjallkonan - Fusion Iceland food. Means lady of the mountains . Created to celebrate Iceland’s Independence Day on 17June. Place used to be a falcon storage area providing falcons for the king of Denmark 🇩🇰

No “gamey” smell from lamb dish - surprisingly good

2. Baejarins Beztu Pylsur - Famous hotdog stand which has been operational since 1937. Each hotdog with the full works costs \240690ISK. The hotdog consists of 80% lamb & 20% other meats and was \240topped with Icelandic sauce (mustard/apple sauce). Bill Clinton made it famous. There’s always a queue here.

Try the one with everything on it -like fresh and fried onions beneath hotdog

3. Messinn - seafood restaurant famous for Iceland’s cod fish stew (Icelandic Plokkfiskur) and char grilled arctic char dish. Both were delicious and portions were sizeable too!

4. Islenski Barinn - Pub across our hotel actually where we sampled the traditional meat soup (Icelendic barr) as well as their famous fermented shark. A young chap in the group threw up as he couldn’t take the smell and taste! Their orange soda was really refreshing.

Shark piece was chewy and not easy to stomach so it’s usually drunk with strong liquor - Brennivin known as Black Death

5. Cafe Loki - (yes the God of Mischief from Avengers which is part of Norse mythology). Rye bread Ice cream dessert with a twisted donut known as Kleina. There, they also had a surprise treat for CT’s birthday!

Cafe Loki

Twisted donut (Kleina) with rye bread and chocolate chip vanilla ice cream

Added note on Icelandic food :

Skyr is a yogurt like dessert they seem to like here. Tastes a lot like yogurt although a lot creamier; a cross between cheese and yogurt. They have it in a cake, ice cream etc

Rye bread - almost like a cake. In the farmlands, they still make it the traditional way by burying it in the ground for 24 hours. It’s nice, like a sweet bread.

Our small walking food tour group

Hallgrimskirkja Church

Rainbow street leading to Hallgrimskirkja

Organ pipes inside church

Rainbow street next to main shopping street

Day 1 on tour - GOLDEN CIRCLE

First stop was Pingvellir National Park. This is where the 2 tectonic plates (North American and European plates) are separating; so technically Iceland is expanding. Site is where the first parliament had its sitting in 930CE; hence the UNESCO recognition.

Pingvellir national park

Other waterfalls we saw today were:

Gullfoss

Gullfoss (not too far from the national park) showed us how tremendous hydro power can be; the sheer volume of fast flowing water was intimidating.

Stopped for lunch at Geyser city \240- \240Strokkur is the smaller of the 2 geysers; goes up to 20-25m high.

Enroute to our hotel on the south coast of Iceland (Hotel Stracta - basic but clean) for the night, we visited the oldest swimming pool in Iceland. It \240had no fixed base, only a natural sand bed \240and was naturally heated. Our guide Sindri also showed us a new city Center; Selfoss - \2401 1/2 hours from Reykjavik.

Scenery was mainly farmland. Sheep and Icelandic horses were everywhere. Animals here are much smaller than elsewhere. In fact, there are no tall trees here - at most short coniferous trees.

Icelandic horses had Mongolian blood

Day 2 on tour - Reynisdrangar mountain range

It was an active day with lots of walking, climbing etc.

Chasing waterfalls. First stop - a walk behind the Seljalandsfoss waterfall for our morning shower! Something I won’t usually do but I’m glad I did - it was amazing. The climb up and down slippery rocks was worth it.

Loud, roaring, powerful

At the end of the ice age, this road used to be the sea floor. Now occupied by farms, it had a calming, peaceful charm about it- see the galloping horses in the video below.

Scenery along the southern coast, heading east for our glacier walk

One more waterfall stop before that - Skogafoss

Skogafoss - The most filmed waterfall found in major movie productions

At base of Skogafoss

Lava fields - Eldhraun lava fields is Iceland’s largest covered in moss at 56.5 sq km and 250 million years old.

Moss covered round shaped boulders as far as your eyes could see

We also visited Reynisfjara Black sand beach - super windy and the black sand (ground down from volcanic rock that cooled down and solidified) beat against our faces (ouch!). The basalt structures and the lava flow that cooled as they reached the sea was something out of a movie set!

Basalt Columns at edge of Reynisfjall mountains

Glacier hike - Europe largest glacier, Myrdarsjokull - we hiked up to the edge of Vatnajokull; quite a strenuous 3 hr activity. The reward was drinking the delicious glacier water at the top of the glacier.

Our guide from Austria, Nicholas

With our steel crampons on and ice picks, we were ready to climb the glacier!

Picture below shows just how massive a small glacier boulder can be when one bounced down from this glacier and landed here in summer; and when it melted the next summer, the size of this indentation is huge.

The 3 men are those from our small group tour - standing in the crater left by the ‘small’ ice boulder.

Finally to end a physically exhausting day, we had a well deserved dinner for all that hard work.

Stop for the night - in Hofn

Day 3 of tour - East Fjords

Driving eastwards along the scenic route to Djupivogur and then to the Egilsstaoir area, \240we saw the different views of the same glacier we climbed yesterday - that’s how large it is! Yet, with global warming, it’s losing 4m annually.

Today we continue eastwards to Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. The Diamond beach was one sight I was looking forward to seeing.

The glittering large icebergs break off from Breioamerkurjokull glacier and we caught sight of one that flowed into an already large lagoon. The icebergs head to diamond beach and the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes a piece floats onto the beach and that’s why they call it diamond beach!

Looks like map of Iceland

Next stop Eystrahorn mountains which apparently is the most beautiful in Iceland. Standing at its base, I couldn’t see this but an aerial shot with the ring road going around was a totally different view.

Lunch was in an old fishing village called Djúpivogur meaning ‘Eggs of Merry Bay’.

We spent the night in the town of Egilstaðir. On the drive there, we went through a horseshoe shaped canyon called with several waterfalls. One of them is Oxi (below). The canyon was like a scene from the earlier ice age movie where the animals passed through before the sudden water deluge.

This highland pass was the old ring road but can be blocked when covered with snow in winter; hence they created a new ring road by the coast.

Stopped for the night at Eglistaoir. Lots of lovely looking wild flowers growing all over during summer months

Day 4 - \240North Iceland

Studlagil Canyon - wilderness all around with huge basalt rock formations. It’s 1000 steps up and down to the cantilevered viewing platform.

Amazing gorge

Our next stop was to Europe’s most powerful waterfall- Dettifoss. Along the way, we passed tough \240terrain where America used to send their astronauts for moon mission training and where Tom Cruise filmed Oblivion.

The area, Möðrudalur is the highest farm in Iceland for generations and also has the highest inhabited place and restaurant, at 469 m

Grey and stark landscape - you won’t want to get lost here

Dettifoss

Another shower from the mist!

Namaskaro - geothermal paradise with steamy puddles of mud pots 1000m deep and temperatures above 200 Celsius. The smell of sulphur was horrid and irritating insects were everywhere. These are midges- many species all live in nearby Myvatn Lake.

Bubbling mud pots set in moon like landscapes

Huverfjall crater in Skutustadahreppur where a geo thermal power plant was in operation. It didn’t look too big at all. For sone tongue in cheek fun, they even had a hot water outdoor shower for those who may want one!

Iceland is self sufficient when it comes to generating heat and electricity. In fact all the roads and sidewalks are heated so there’s no need to shovel snow in winter.

Of elves and trolls- prominent in Icelandic folklore. Dimmuborgir formations, known as the Dark Castles looked like a home just for them. Do you know the difference? Trolls are supposedly 3 times taller/bigger than humans while elves are about the same size except they are invisible!

Dark castles is the name given to this park that revolves around this folklore

Last stop - Godafoss waterfall, a crescent shaped falls that’s as vast as the Dettifoss we visited in the morning. Apparently it was here that the last Pagan Chieftain, Gooi, threw his pagan statues after Iceland converted to Christianity. The name means waterfall of the gods.

To conclude the day, we arrived into the beautiful town set within a fjord - Akureyri. The capital of North Iceland and the biggest town outside of Reykjavik. A huge cruise ship was parked in the dock. The old part of town had quaint, pretty houses and even a church

Akureyri

Dinner at Strikid was amazing (the salmon makes all the ones I’ve had so far seem like poor quality). Of course we had their famous Icelandic skyr done in a totally new way. A perfect end to a very full day.

The langostine maki was done so differently

Skyr is on the right but my orange brownie was so well done too

Our country hotel was located with a great view of the Sveinbjarnargerði valley with the ice capped mountains set against the fjords.

Our view as we enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate on the hotel verandah

Sunset at past midnight. Only 2 hrs+ of night in summer. It’s strange to go to sleep when it’s still bright outside.

Day 4 - North west Iceland

Dalvik - Whale watching out in the fjord this morning, so we had to drive to the small fishing village of Dalvik to catch our boat⛴️ . It’s also one of the premier skiing areas of Iceland.

Drove along the troll peninsula with mountains all around. Strangely, they are all the same height. Saw a beautiful 🌈rainbow along the way which is a good way to start the day!

Whale watching - managed to see 3 humpback whales. I would say the whales we saw in Augusta, Perth were larger but watching them come out of water here and set against the mountain scenery in Iceland was simply breathtaking.

Mountains came straight down to the sea.

Waterfalls from melting snow

Warmly dressed for the boat ride out

Lunch was at the charming town of Dalvik- a delicious fish soup that was so really yummy that I had seconds.. Strangely it had a curry taste., We thought Icelandic food won’t have too many spices in it or would mostly be bland or salty. Did not expect spices to be used. But Dalvik is famous for its fish soup ‘Fiskasupa’ competition!

Fiskasupa

Driving along the northern coast of Iceland, we stopped by the most northern part of the tour at Siglufjordur (below) and Saudarkrokur. We even stopped at an open air museum where the last execution took place in Iceland in 1700s. At that time, their heads were displayed on spikes as a warning to the residents.

Northern most part of Iceland tour

Going through the one way tunnels through the mountain passes

Stop for the night in north west Iceland- Laugarbakki. A former University hostel taken over by a hotel. However, it was in the middle of nowhere with no amenities or dining facilities except for the expensive hotel cafe!

We did notice the name of the road below - made famous by the Avengers

Day 6 or tour - West Iceland

Voted by Lonely Planet as one of the best destinations in 2016. It was a very chilly day so we are glad the weather was nicer during the earlier part of the trip.

Close to our hotel is GRÁBRÓKARGIGAR - a volcanic crater. Wooden steps took us up to the rim of the mouth of the crater. There are actually 3 craters in this zone.

Near Borgarnes in West Iceland is where the biggest hot spring in Europe exists in terms of the high flow and hot water \240- bubbling waters are boiling at 100C.. Deildartunguhver hot spring

Smells so bad because of the sulphur

Our group here had wet hair and faces after several minutes here!

Barnafoss - sad story about the 2 children who died here

Reykholt - Iceland most famous histographer, lawyer , politician, poet Snorri Sturluson lived here and had his own private ‘hot tub’ piped in from the springs nearby.

There are hundreds of thousands of waterfalls in Iceland. The last 2 we saw were the Barnafoss (children’s falls) and Hraunfossar (Lava falls) where we stopped for lunch.

Very pretty Lava falls

Icelandic horse stables at Sturlureykir These horses. 5 different gaits - like walk, trot, canter, tolt & flying. We saw the workings of an actual horse farm. They had a natural hot spring on it that provided unending hot water. There’s so much that most of it is just thrown away.

Shepard and guide horses

Natural hol spring on the farm

Oven within the ground where they bake Icelandic rye bread

On the return route to Reykjavik, we went through a tunnel under the fjord. A car was waiting to pick us up and send us to Courtyard Marriott near the airport. Last night in Iceland before heading to Copenhagen for the next few days..

It was a good group of merry band of travellers and our guide Sindri was excellent

Goodbye Iceland 🇮🇸. It has been a very good 6 days all around the island. Each region had its own special highlight but for me, North Iceland was the most scenic

Always in the driver’s seat😉