Iceland: Golden Circle

The Golden Circle Tour

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

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

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?!

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.

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!

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

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!

Bonus 2

The best but for horse lovers is that you get to meet the horses after the show and get your picture taken with them!

Apparently lots of tourists cause accidents whilst stopping on the roads to take photos of the horses, so experiences like this contain them…

After a swift beer in the bar we were back on the bus and into Reykjavik – the tour was complete.

Don’t forget to check out my experience watching the Northern Lights dance and braving the Blue Lagoon in a snow storm!

If you want to see more driving around Iceland when there is less ice, check out this video from Like Riding a Bicycle blog.