Iceland

My parents own a travel agency, and I've spent my life seeing the world. When asked where my favorite place to go is, my answer is and will always be "somewhere new." Needless to say, there's a whole lot of "somewhere new" out there waiting for me to discover. In March, we ticked off a bucket list destination with 

Reykjavik, Iceland

Why Iceland? Iceland has quite a few big draws, and we only got to touch a few of them, because this volcanic island is actually quite large! From hotsprings to waterfalls to old folklore, Iceland has something for everyone!

What did we do?

• Geothermal Hotsprings

You have quite a few options in regards to hotspring experiences in Iceland. The most popular is the Blue Lagoon, which features manmade facilities, reservations, and comes with a fairly hefty pricetag ~$120/person. We opted to forego the full on tourist experience and opted instead for The Secret Lagoon in Fludir. I had my reservations going in, but rest assured I have zero regrets about the selection. The Secret Lagoon is a bit out of a fairytale. When I describe it to people, I tell them it's like a farmer happened to have a hotspring and opened it to the public. The hotspring was left natural with a volcanic sand bottom, mini geysirs, and horses grazing in the countryside. A quaint farmhouse on a hill rounds out an enchanting and largely private experience. We came as part of a tour, and our group consisted of about 15 people. While the air outside was cold and rainy, the water was perfect and had hot spots and cooler spots for your preference. A snack bar provided reasonably priced fish and chips and libations in safe containers for enjoying in the hotspring. I fell in love with a sommersby elderflower cider. The pricetag here is $28 ($14 for seniors and free for kids) and I was completely head over heels with the entire experience. We took fewer photos here since they seemed somewhat discouraged (but no one yelled at us or anything).

• The Golden Circle

We booked our golden circle excursion through Arctic Adventures, and had a marvelous time. Our tour group was small, our guide friendly with great English, and the sites mesmerizing. We stopped on both sides of the techtonic fault in Pingvellir/Thingvellir, had plenty of time to marvel at the geysir fields of Strokkur, and a breathtaking view of Gullfoss waterfall (although it was too icy to hike down under the falls).

• Petting Fluffy Icelandic Horses (Careful- They bite!)

Our tour guide stopped at one of several tourist stops for petting and feeding Icelandic horses. They really do look like fluffy ponies, and- while friendly- are definitely accustomed to receiving the treats from the honor system kiosk. I got an eager nibble, but couldn't bring myself to be too upset by their adorableness.

• Northern Lights Excursion

Northern lights are one of those bucket list items that are elusive and spectacular. We saw lots of fabulous pictures at the museum, but weather was not on our side on our tour. We got one teensy barest pale ribbon, enough to know we had seen one, but definitely not the show we hoped for. This is a bucket list item we'll just have to try at another polar destination!

• Reykjavik City Tour

Parliament building. The large boulder on the sidewalk is a monument to civil disobedience

We booked our trip with Gate1 Travel at a steal of $800/person for airfare, hotel, full breakfast, city tour, and northern lights excursion. Reyjavik is fairly small and walkable, so the city tour really helped us orient ourselves for the walking we would do later. We stopped at the Leif Erikkson church, The Perlan Museum, and The Northern Lights Museum. We saw the harbor, the pond, parliament building, student campus, and relation to our hotel. After the tour was over, we took a self-guided walk through the very beautiful and unusual cemetary in downtown Reykjavik. 

• Experiencing Icelandic Cuisine

At the Strokkur Geysir Center, there were lots of places to eat. This large dining hall had a cafeteria style and gorgeous open floor plan. We opted for stews which came with bread and butter and 1 refill each.

Our mint chip icecream was blue

If you haven't gathered from this blog just yet, our house is a foodie house, and we LOVE to eat delicious food. It's great to immerse yourself in a culture through cuisine and Iceland had some unique experiences we were thrilled to try (and others we weren't quite brave enough to taste).

Our very first taste came at Café Loki while everyone was touring the church. Their menu is clearly designed to give tourists a taste of Iceland and EVERYTHING was a little unusual and VERY spectacular. We tried several types of rye bread in Iceland- several of which are quite sweet- and topped them with cheeses, smoked lamb and salmon, mashed and pickled fish, and even tasted rye icecream. This is also where we got our first taste of fish jerky, which smells how you'd expect and is served with butter and is very oddly satisfying.




Breakfast included at the Hotel Blu Saga each morning was a wide array of both continental breakfast items, traditional items like eggs and sausage, and a curated buffet of Icelandic meats and cheeses and thick skyr yogurt.

Our only breakfast complaint was there was not a single place in Iceland that served and American-sized cup of coffee. haha.

Speaking of coffee, to say licorice is a popular flavor in Iceland would be an understatement and we had black licorice cappuccinos in a little coffee shop on the square.








 I insisted on stopping at the Icelandic Street Food shop for "fast food" bread bowls of traditional Icelandic meat stew and fish stew which were fabulous. The shop also offered little cakes.

The Icelandic Street Food shop was designed as Icelandic "fast food", but there were some seats inside. We had a seat at the bar against the window. You can see there was an array of tiny desserts available as well

We also did a flight of Icelandic beer at the Icelandic Craft Bar.

We did, of course, try a famous Pylsur lamb hotdog. It wasn't anything terribly special, but we enjoyed the experience.

 Our final food stop was a full 8 course Icelandic tapas style dinner at Tapas Barinn. We started the night out with a shot of brennivin and an amuse bouche of lamb with licorice sauce before indulging in smoked puffin, artic char, lobster, blue ling, lamb with butterscotch sauce, minke whale, and a dessert of white chocolate skyr mousse.

We had cocktails at Apotek

What else is there to do?

• Pagan Folklore & Museums
• Viking History & Museums
• Glacier Tours
• Whale Watching & Fishing Expeditions
• Hiking

Some things you may not know about Iceland:

• Iceland is on the pricey side. Not necessarily to a point of out-doing big cities, but definitely a little sticker shock. Cocktails are priced around $30 and a cheap meal is $15-$25 per person. Deals can be found if you're willing to hunt.
• Because Iceland is a geothermal hotspot, they've harnessed that energy for everyone. Heat is free, and produce is grown in geothermal greenhouses. 
• Wifi is widely available and usually free. Our tour bus was it's own wifi hotspot in the rural countryside of Iceland.
• Sheep are kind of a big deal. They're free range and the wool industry is regulated. We didn't see any though...Also, puffin season is in the summer, so you can do northern lights or puffins but not both. 
• Licorice is a thing, like a really big thing. There is every manner of licorice flavored candy and dessert. We bought black licorice, licorice candies, licorice coffee, licorice chocolate bars, and several licorice flavored liquors (brennivin, topas, opal).
• Buy your liquor at the airport. it's just easier.
• While most people do speak English to some varying degree, and tourist items (like menus and museums) have things written in English, not everything caters to English speakers. Road signs are not in English, and ingredients list are usually not in English. 
• Geothermal public bathhouses are a thing that we totally missed out on. Apparently, if you ask about a pool at your hotel, they will direct you to the public bathhouse and a $10 visitor card to use for the week. These are essentially multiple gigantic hot tubs ala the prefect tub in harry potter. 
• Reyjavik looks so much bigger on the map than it feels in real life. We walked everywhere. it was March, and we didn't freeze.

What did we WEAR?

We live in Pennsylvania which means we have four seasons where we live, and most are temperate. After much research, we packed (and wore) layers. Our layers usually consisted of thermal underwear, a sweater/sweatshirt, and a warm coat. I brought a hooded ski/parka style jacket and my husband brought a wool coat. We also had lined caps and snoods. I brought fleece-lined leggings. Honestly, we were totally fine, and often ended up shedding/foregoing layers. That's kind of the point of layers. With heat being basically free, every building was very warm, often bordering on too warm. 

Souveneirs

What did we BUY?

Wool is THE big product there, so we bought wool socks for everyone, and a coveted wool blanket for my in-laws, who spent the week snowed in with our toddler in Pennsylvania while we were having a fabulous time in Iceland. We also picked up a Xmas ornament with lava rock- a tradition my mother instilled in me- but What do you brink a toddler from Iceland? I pondered this in shop after shop. Sure, I bought him tiny wool socks. Sure I bought him a tiny Viking ship, but the perfect gift? The perfect gift was a new rubber ducky for his collection- a puffin rubber ducky.

We also brought back a lot of alcohol, because collecting liquor from around the world is a hobby. In addition to the national drink of brennivin, we brought back BIRKIR- liqueurs with birch branches inside the bottles, and ocean moss liqueur, and rhubarb and crowberry, and vodka filtered through volcanic rock, and multiple snippets of licorice liquors. You can also see here that we brought back Icelandic chocolate (including Easter chocolate), ocean moss tea, fish jerky and rye breads.

We had a fabulous time in Iceland, and it had a unique beauty we really appreciated getting to see. I could sit in a geothermal hotspring all day every day, and actually grew very fond of Icelandic food in our short time there. Both IcelandAir and WOW do extended layover in Iceland to promote tourism. This means that if you're flying to Europe on one of these airlines, they typically have a stop in Iceland and you can choose to extend your layover for up to a week without changing the price of your ticket, which is very cool. I highly recommend the experience.