Iceland: Golden Circle

The golden circle is a very popular tour to do in Iceland and something I decided to do after my main priority – the Nothern Lights.

Golden Circle Tour Iceland, Gullfoss Waterfall

The Golden Circle Tour

A full day tour, it visits several cool spots, including:

Pingvellir (said like Thingvellir) national park – the place where Iceland is growing (it’s in the Rift Valley between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates) and where the Viking parliament used to meet.

Gullfoss (said like Gudfloss and where the golden circle gets its name Gud = gold) waterfall, truly spectacular in scale.

Geysir – where the famous geysers gave their name to hot springs exploding!

With an Icelandic horse show thrown in for good measure….

We did the tour with Graylines – but all the tour companies seem to do this one! By booking directly we saved a few quid, but again there wasn’t much in the price.

The tour company picked us up from our hotel – Harfnarfjordur (try saying that first thing in the morning, a drink definitely helps! Then we met up with the tour bus at the terminal and jumped on with Dee Dee as our guide.

We left Reykjavik about 10.30 in the morning as the sun was rising I’ve the horizon

(Shot out of the moving tour bus!)

We finally saw the mountains the other side of the harbour as the clouds rolled back. We were very lucky to have a clear day after the snow storm at the Blue Lagoon the day before!

Pingvellir

After an hour or so driving we came to Pingvellir national park. It covers the area between the 2 tectonic plates, which is mostly lake covered with a frosting of snow from the previous day’s storm.

View across the lake

Stunning winter wonderland! It’s an UNESCO world heritage site

We walked down from the viewing platform to the Viking parliament plain – where the Icelandic flag was proudly fluttering in the wind.

The parliament plain overlooks the presidents summer house where he entertains fellow statesmen/women.

Can you spot the house in front of the stand of trees?!

To access the plain you had to walk down a cravass between the rocks – a similar location to where game of thrones was filmed.

Kate and I posing

Playing around with the sun!

Next up was Gullfloss:

It was a bit exposed and nippy out

The waterfalls were supposedly saved from development for hydroelectric by the landowners daughter Sigriour and there is a memorial to her by the side of the falls.

Braving a bare face for 30 seconds!

Can you see the rainbow?!

View from above looking downstream

Upstream – the gold comes from how the river wears down the rock and the sediment is carried in the water making it look muddy or gold!

From the top

In action video styles – yes it was very windy out there!

Geysir

This is the site of the original geyser the rest are named after…

A close up of the ice crystals that form when the geyser goes off and the water turns into steam on hitting the frigid air…

There he goes! This one is called Strokkur.

I managed to get a video of it exploding! (yes those are shrieks of surprise, it was very erratic going off)

It was very pretty waiting for the geyser to go off – we were so lucky with the weather!

Bonus stops

Up next was our bonus stop – Skálholt cathedral, the seat of the Icelandic bishops

Looks magical through the trees

Inside its unusually decorated – most Lutheran churches are very plain, but Skálholt has a mosaic mural and lots of stained glass windows – all made by female artists

Close up of the vibrant stained glass.

Skálholt also has a traditional turf hut you can go inside of and artefacts from archeological digs are kept in the museum in the basement – you can still use the old tunnel to exit, apparently it kept the bishop out of the cold going from his house to the Cathedral!