The west coast of Iceland
The golden circle is the most popular of the scenic routes in Iceland, the topmost recommendation for things to do if you are spending more than a day in the country. It starts and ends in Reykjavik and encompasses a national park, a waterfall and a geothermal area with active geysers. We naturally chose to go on this drive on our second day in Reykjavik.
The weather seemed as gloomy and cold as our first day as we embarked on the not-so-long drive of about forty-five minutes to the Thingvellir national park, our first stop. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, home to the world’s oldest parliament. We spent some time at the visitor center learning about the parliament, called Althing, which was an open-air assembly and ventured out to walk on the fault created by the separation of the Eurasian and north American tectonic plates. It started raining soon and that coupled with the cold weather forced us to shop for some Icelandic rain gear at the store in the visitor center. We then walked to Oxararfoss, a waterfall nearby. It is a relatively smaller waterfall compared to the many we would see in Iceland but garnered significance due to its location on the edge of the boundary line between the tectonic plates. We continued our drive to reach the Geysir geothermal area. The Strokkur geyser erupting every six to ten minutes is the biggest attraction here. We hung around to see the eruption a couple times or to get the perfect capture on our phone cameras, rather. We walked around and then helped ourselves to some lunch at a restaurant in the visitor center.
I was most excited about seeing the Gulfoss waterfall on the golden circle. It is the largest waterfall in Europe by volume. Although very tall, we can only admire this waterfall from the top. We walked to the different viewpoints and it was spectacular from every where. The roar of the waterfall silenced the crowd and let us enjoy the magnificence, spraying us from top to bottom if we dared to get close. The clouds had made way for the sun sometime during our drive to the falls. I wondered if all the other waterfalls would match up to the grandeur of Gulfoss as we headed towards our last stop for the day, the Kerid crater. It is a newer volcanic crater lake with red slopes and greenish-blue water, colored so due to the volcanic minerals. This was the least crowded spot we visited that day and we enjoyed a leisurely walk around the lake. This day set the tone for the rest of our trip. We would see many more waterfalls and some more craters and compare each with the other, hoping to remember all of their names and what they looked like after the trip.
We left Reykjavik and headed north towards the Snaefellsnes peninsula, spending a day hiking to the Glymur waterfall, the second-tallest in Iceland. We hiked along the river, crossing it eventually on a single log of wood holding on to a rope on one side. The climb up rewarded us with beautiful views on a day with perfect weather. We had to cross the river again at the top, this time without any logs, forcing us to take our shoes off. We tried to convince ourselves that we are enjoying walking in the water which was a little too cold.
The gloomy weather in Iceland meant that people including tourists like me who are on a clock to make the most of our time there, were out and about later in the day. So most of our mornings were relaxed, which was rather unusual for me. It worked since we did not plan any strenuous hikes. Each day involved walking around or doing easy to moderate hikes and spending a few hours driving as we slowly circled the island in the clockwise direction.
The respite from the clouds did not last long. They were back when we explored Arnarstapi and Hellnar, both fishing villages in the peninsula, promising stellar coastal views. I wondered if Iceland was presenting us the best weather to view each place in. I could not imagine seeing the dramatic rock formations and cliffs in a different light. I did not quite feel this way as we walked down to the Kirkjufellfoss later that day. This waterfall and the very interestingly shaped mountain behind, which is it’s namesake, make up an iconic Iceland photo. It is one of the first few you will see if you simply googled “Iceland”. By now, we had learnt a thing or two in Icelandic. If you have paid close attention to the names of places I mentioned, you would know those too. Foss means waterfall, fell means mountain and Kul means glacier. Hopefully I would identify more as the days passed.
One of our favorite discoveries on this trip was the delectable “skyr” or Icelandic yogurt. We had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if possible. We shopped at grocery stores more often than we needed to, only to try different flavors of skyr and were never disappointed. I was grateful for the VisitingIceland subreddit for introducing skyr as something not to be missed while in Iceland. I tried finding it here in the US but the brands sold here do not come anywhere close. We might have to make another trip to taste the original again!
