A warm winter break to... Iceland

This holiday almost seems like a lifetime ago now, because I’m so delayed in getting the blog post up, but it’s been on my mind to do it before we go on our next trip and since that is only 13 days away, I thought I’d better get cracking!

This trip has been about 18 months in the making.  We were meant to go last year, but last minute annual leave restrictions meant putting the brakes on our plans for a year.  But the stars finally aligned enough for us to be able to plan it properly, incorporating our friends who came all the way from Switzerland (via Denmark!) for the holiday, so it was well worth it.

We landed in Iceland from a dreary, rainy England (what’s new, huh?) to bright sunshine.  I’m not sure about the rest of our party, but I was sort of shocked.  I’m not sure what I expected, but sunshine would have been right near the bottom of the list.  Add to that the fact that there was no snow and this blonde chick was thoroughly confused.  Iceland?  Sunny with no snow… really?  As it turns out, winter in Iceland seemed no different snow-wise to England.  Well, except for the fact that everything still works and the inhabitants don’t turn into moaning ninnies just at the sight of the first flake of snow.  But the thing that struck me most about it was that it was warmer in Iceland than it had been in England!  Seriously.  It was positively tropical!

We headed to our hotel on the airport shuttle and checked in, then took a wander down the road to a café for some lunch.  We were staying in Reykjavik and chose a hotel that was a very manageable 10 minute walk into the centre.  Our friends from Switzerland had arrived the day before us and were out dog sledding when we arrived (very jealous!), so we relaxed the afternoon away after our incredibly early morning and met up with them for dinner.  We had booked our Northern Lights tour for our first night, because the tour companies in Iceland all give you a free tour if you don’t see the lights on your first trip.  In fact, they give you as many free tours as you need until you get a proper sighting.  The 6 of us went out for an early dinner at the gorgeous Italian place next door to the hotel and then got ready for our night of Northern Light spotting. 

Although we stopped 3 times and saw a vaguely green haze, we didn’t see the Lights doing their usual jig in the sky as you see on YouTube or TV.  In fact, our little naked eyeballs could hardly pick anything up at all – the only reason I’m willing to say that we did actually see the Northern Lights, was because Dave’s fancy camera picked up a massively splotchy green sky – something we couldn’t see with just our eyes.  The contrast from what we could see and what was picked up on Dave’s camera is incredible.  While all we saw was a vaguely hazy, albeit very starry sky, this is what Dave’s camera picked up... 

The tour was deemed a failure, because we didn’t see the lights dancing, so we are in for a free tour when we next visit Iceland.  It was a good night though – all of us standing in the freezing cold, staring up at a beautifully clear starry sky.  It was really special.

The following day after breakfast, 4 of us set off on a walk into Reykjavik centre.  We spent a couple of hours walking around and into the little shops.  We went down to the harbour and saw the conference centre and its impressive glass exterior.  It’s a pity that the sun wasn’t shining, because it’s supposed to be pretty spectacular when the sun shines off it.

We also made a stop at the most famous hot dog stand in Reykjavik – a very unassuming little wooden hut, completely hidden by the barriers from the adjoining construction site, but that doesn’t deter the locals, obviously, because we still had to stand in a queue!  They were delicious, so it was worth the wait.

That afternoon, we headed off to the Blue Lagoon.  This was one of the most anticipated visits on our trip and we were all looking forward to an afternoon spent lazing in the hot springs.  And it didn’t disappoint.  I was really worried about getting from the changing room to the water because the temperature outside had dropped considerably from the day before when we landed, but of course I needn't have worried, because they are well prepared and you are able to enter the water whilst still inside the building and then move to the outside through a massive door.  The cold hits you square in the face, but the rest of you doesn’t care, because the water was so lovely and warm.  Every now and then all of us girls would squeal in unison when a cold current hit us, but on the whole, the entire pool ranged from quite warm to quite hot.  We found one spot which was very hot, but it was such a small spot that we took it in couples to wallow in it, while the others languished in the quite hot part. 

One of the things that is advertised at the Blue Lagoon is natural mud which can be used as a face mask.  Despite searching everywhere, we couldn’t find it – we could see people with it on their faces, but we just couldn’t find it.  Finally, at one point when I put my foot down on the ground, it landed on something really squishy…… hmmm.  It was absolutely gross and I nearly had a heart attack at the prospect of what was under my foot, but one of the boys were brave enough to put their hand down and bring it to the surface and we’d found it!  Mud!  Dave promptly put it all over his face whilst I was inspecting it and found numerous black hairs in it.  I nearly hurled – and passed out laughing at the same time when I looked up to see this hair-laden stuff plastered all over my husband’s face!!  I then asked a passing patrol man where we could find the mud and he pointed over to the far side of the lagoon and then looked at Dave with a puzzled look on his face and said ‘it’s much cleaner than the mud he’s got on his face’.  HA HA!  So essentially it was the same stuff, just cleaned out and purified to a certain extent – certainly sans hair at any rate.  So we all waded over to the other side of the lagoon and gave ourselves face masks.  Getting out of the lagoon after 2 hours was really strange… all of us girls felt a bit light-headed and needed a minute before we could carry on to the showers to get ready to go home.  It didn’t last long, thankfully, but it was a very strange feeling.

That night, we were contemplating booking onto our free Northern Lights tour, but the weather was too overcast and the tour didn’t go out, so we just took a walk into town and found a Thai restaurant to have dinner at.  It was a lovely end to a very nice day, surrounded by good friends, good food and good conversation.

The following day after a very early breakfast, the tour company picked us up for our Golden Circle tour.  A trip around the Golden Circle in Iceland involves visiting 4 important (mainly geological) sites and is a full day tour.  We were lucky enough (read into that any level of sarcasm that you’d like) to bags ourselves a singing tour guide.  A singing one.  For a full day tour – on a bus with nowhere else to go, we got a singing tour guide.  She loved singing.  Badly.  She sang, on average, every 30 minutes.  She said that she believes that a life without singing is a life not worth living.  After her 6^th song, my life wasn’t worth living.  Our first stop was a greenhouse village where we were told about the produce that is grown there and had the chance to taste some fresh tomato soup if we wanted (I didn’t). 

The next stop was Gullfoss (meaning ‘golden falls’), an absolutely gorgeous waterfall, half of which was flowing, the other half of which was completely frozen.  The landscape here was like something from the moon. 

It was a really very pretty site to visit and highly recommended if you ever find yourself in Iceland.

Our next stop was to see the Geysir & Strokkur geysers.  The word 'geyser' got its name from this geothermal spring.  Geysir itself doesn’t erupt regularly anymore, but Strokkur was unfailing in providing us with a spectacular eruption every 3-4 minutes. 

Click here for a short video.

Again, the landscape was really pretty – even the sulphur smell didn’t detract from spectacular scenery around us. 

Our last stop was to Þingvellir, where the Icelandic parliament was founded.  There isn‘t a great deal to see here, but the views are amazing. 

We were then on our way back after a very eventful day.  One thing we learnt from the singing tour guide was the Icelandic people‘s belief in Elves.  There are even little elf houses built on some properties and in the mountains.  It was kind of cute actually.  She did admit though that she had never seen one.  That night, we again contemplated booking onto our free Northern Lights tour, but again it didn‘t go out due to the visibility.  So it‘s a really good job that we had booked to go on our first night, because as it happened, it was the only night that the tour ran during our entire stay.

We took a walk into town to have dinner in a traditional Icelandic restaurant.  It was a really lovely cosy atmosphere in a ‘saloon‘ type of place.  Dimly lit with wooden beams and far too many tables squashed in for the space available, it was awesome!  And to go with the atmosphere, the food was amazing too.  Dave claims to have had the best meal he‘s ever had in his life there – I make a pretty mean spaghetti bolognaise, but whatever!  My meal was pretty delicious too, so all-in-all a good choice for dinner.   On the way back we saw this...

You know... because all good city centres should have a painted mural teaching you how to do your tie in 3 different ways.

Mark & Marlen had a very early start, so we said goodnight and goodbye to them when we got back to the hotel.  The rest of us who were heading back to the UK had a slightly later start, but still had to be in the breakfast room at 7am as they started serving, because our transport was picking us up at 8am.  And so the bus arrived and with it the end of a lovely holiday.  One that had been over a year in the making, so I was really chuffed to have finally done it.  The minute we arrived back at home, Dave was on his laptop, looking up flights for a trip back in Summer.  He‘d really like to do a photographic holiday of Iceland – something that costs upwards of £5000 each! 

So Iceland... we‘ll definitely be back soon.  We won‘t be spending £10,000 on a photographic holiday, but we will be back!

Click here for Dave's photo and here for mine.