For lunch we returned to the fantastic seafood place from our lunch last Sunday, and ordered seafood soup and mackeral. The customers next to us were impressed with the mackeral, and asked us what we had ordered...
1:41am Reykjavik City Hostel
Wendy woke me at 9:10am. Slept well with ear plugs. Hardly shifted my body all night. We were full from last night's feast, and simply gathered our bags, and loaded the car (our new personal storage space), skipping breakfast this morning. I chatted with the hostel attendent, and was surprosed to find out there was vacancy in the hostel for tonight. In fact a 2 person private room was available. Bonus! We booked it, having spent last night coming up with a plan to visit the nearby "Golden Circle" attractions today, before starting our roadtrip tomorrow. With tonight's lodging taken care of, we drove into town to load up on groceries at Bonus (Safeway equivalent), where we found Jonagold apples for ~50 cents/lb! Pricies were quite good for much of the merchandise. Afterwards we walked to a restaurant recommended in Lonely Planet, but it was closed (despite signs on the door saying it should be open). So we checked out some of the nearby wool clothing shops that were closed last Sunday (when we walked these streets before the trek), and then drove down to our favorite eatery in town (again from last Sunday), and ordered more seafood (butter) soup and some grilled mackeral. The mackeral came head on, and was spectacular. Each mackeral dish was 1200isk ($10). Not a bad deal!
For lunch we returned to the fantastic seafood place from our lunch last Sunday, and ordered seafood soup and mackeral. The customers next to us were impressed with the mackeral, and asked us what we had ordered...
Not a morsel left. Super good!
Bellies full, we hit the road and started our journey to the "Golden Circle". Filled up on gas in town. 194isk/l (~$6/gallon). Got lost leaving town, and ended up heading back to the airport. Eventually got on track, and ended up taking the long way.
The car has funky locking issues. The keyless remote lock doesn't work, and it requires turning the key back and forth in the door a semi-random amount of times before all the doors lock. Guess that's what you get for an old, cheap, car rental... We retraced part of the bus route, over the mountains to the east, from yesterday. The "Golden Circle" consists of 3 attractions (Žingvellir, Geysir, and Gullfoss waterfall), which I've read are somewhat "over-rated", but all tourists go, since they are just ~1.5 hours from Reykjavik. We included another attraction along the way: a geothermal plant that supplies hot water and electricity to 60% of the country.
The first stop of the Golden Circle was Žingvellir, site of Iceland's Parliament from 970-1760. It's also the site of a rift valley that marks where the North American and Eurasia continental plates under Atlantic Ocean are pulling apart. As cool as that sounds, it wasn't too spectacular looking. In fact, Wendy decided to sleep in the car while I gave it a token look.
I took a quick look down a path through the rock, before heading back to the car...
I then drove another ~45 minutes, along gravel roads at times, to Geysir. The geysir stokkur, goes off every 5-6 min, but only yields 2 second blast. A few other small bubbling puddles were in the area too. This place was nothing compared to the Geysir's in Yellowstone though. The skies were starting to clear, which bodes well for the last Golden Circle attraction...
People gather around a "faithful" geysir that erupts every 5-6 minutes, but it spouts mostly steam, and last only a couple seconds...
The highlight of the Golden Circle (by far), is Gullfoss waterfall, which we happened to visit while all lit up in the afternoon sunlight, surrounded by green fields, and draped with rainbows.
A couple more angles. We didn't bother walking close to it, as we were still resting after our 5 day trek, and didn't feel like getting wet...
Overall, the Golden Circle was not that spectacular. I'd recommend spending the day on a round trip bus to Thorsmork instead, as there are extremely impressive rocks/glaciers/waterfalls around the volcano. We drove back to Reykjavik in the sunshine, admiring the green landscapes.
After dropping our groceries off at the hostel, we drove to seafood buffet that Wendy found an ad for in on a flyer. 2800isk ($23), and lots of Icelandic seafood variety. Good quality fish, salads, and amazing bread. Ruebread, the chef called it. Like a molassis/pumpking bread. Dark and moist. We asked the chef give us more, but he would only talk about how great and special it was. It took 3 days to make it.
Mmmm... We sampled lots of great seafood, and had some lamb soup too...
Back at the hostel, we research for the rest of the trip. Weather is looking ok, and we can't let dictate our plans entirely. Figured out a 7 day itinary. 1st we'll head to the westfjords, and plan to stay in Isafjordur. Hopefully google map driving estimates are correct. Took a shower and now bed time. Too bad I'm up late. Need sleep for 7+ hours of driving tomorrow. 8:30am wake-up alarm, and a big breakfast planned for tomorrow.
