Snaefellsnes

As one of my most memorable moments of Iceland happened on Snaefellsnes, I decided I have to write about it as well, even if it is already some days past. There are also some places we passed I did not even mention in my articles, but maybe I can give some impressions of them in the next and last time I write about Iceland (it will take some time, but there will be more! Stay tuned!).

Snaefellsnes is a peninsula in the southwest of Iceland, about two hours from Reykjavik. There’s a glacier, the Snaefellsjökull (jökull means glacier), that you can even see from the capital if the weather is good. Here we spent two nights so we could have a full day to explore the peninsula. At this point we already thought we had seen so much, as if anything we can see now would be just a revival of the beautiful places we had already seen. Which would have been nice because we have seen so much beauty that we would definitely like to see it all again. But it was not like that, it was way more and even different again!

First, we decided for what we want to see of the peninsula and planned our route accordingly. One of the places mentioned was the Snaesfellsjökull, but as it is dangerous to explore a glacier on your own and there was a road passing by, we thought it would be a good idea to just drive by and maybe stop if it is beautiful. Just for clarification, there are icelandic roads that are only for four-wheel-drives, these roads are marked f-roads. The road passing the glacier was no such road so I was kind of expecting a normal mountain road.

How wrong I was. Each and every experience I remember of my dad driving up mountain „roads“ in worst shape suddenly came back to me as I did my best to maneuver our two-wheel-drive with four grown-ups inside up this intensly ascending, pothole-filled gravel road. At some point I even warned my passengers „If I say OUT you jump out of the car and push it. If I get the car to move again, DO NOT get in, just hop aside so I can drive the car up to the next even part of the road. There I will wait for you.“ Fortunately, this scenario did not happen, we got up there without the car getting stuck somewhere – but sometimes it was a close call, always using all the momentum I could get and hoping that the snow stays beside the road instead of on the road. Other even smaller cars than ours, driven by people as mad as us, going up the glacier road as well, gave us hope that the road can be done with our car. And we did it – and it was amazing.

The view was so stunning, on one side there was the sea, the coast, beaches, cliffs, waterfalls, other mountains, all you could wish for in a mountain panorama, and on the other side there was the snow and the glacier – and snow mobiles waiting for you to jump in to do a tour to explore the glacier. And the wind blowing down the glacier was so extremely cold, you wouldn’t believe it if you hadn’t experienced it. I could have stayed for ages and just enjoyed the view if I hadn’t felt the cold crawling into me until I was freezing to the bone. As the others felt the same way, we were quick to leave again.

So the next stop was beside the sea, a black beach with lots of parts from a ship wreck. We soon discovered how a ship could wreck on this beach – the rocks were really sharp and the tides were sneaky. We were expecting a beach more like the black beach we already saw but this one was different as the rocks were again shaped completely different and even the black had another shade of darkness. Also, we hat the Jökull behind our back which is a quite unusual beachview.

Here along the coast there are severall really small really cute villages, connected by a hiking trail on top of the cliffs. We were actually planning on visiting each village on its own but we just got so carried away by the view on each of the cliffs that we walked and walked and at some point we just were in the next village and didn’t even realize how far we went.

 

It is as if the water has a different shade of blue in each small bay. And there are so many birds flying around I haven’t seen before and seagulls nesting and even fluffy baby seagulls sitting on some rocks in the cliffs. And then there is this infinity-stream that looks as if it would just disappear in the sea from the right angle. And the coastline seams to go on endlessly, with snow-covered mountains just directly behind. We almost didn’t mind that it was really really windy.

 

From here we passed some kind of crack in the mountain with lots of cars parking there, so we decided we had to see what it is and whether it is somehow special. It kind of looked like Scratch (from Ice Age) was here before. So in front of the pathway up to the crack there was a icelandic tale they tell about this „valley“. Once, there lived a half-troll half-human who had two really beautiful and shapely daughters. In the village there also lived his brother who had two sons (are you already thinking about where this story is going?). So the sons and the daughters played together at the beach and they somehow fought and the elder daughter endet up on a sheet of ice and got carried away to Greenland. She was fine, but her father got really angry so he killed the son who did this. Then he threw his own brother (the father) down a cliff and then killed the other son too. Then he ran into the valley deep into the glacier Snaesfellsjökull and was never seen again. What a nice story.

When we approached the gap where a small stream was coming out, we suddenly felt the temperature drop significantly. To enter the gap, you had to walk through the stream or you could hop on the rocks in the stream. I kind of forgot to change my shoes before and did not wear the water resistant hiking boots so I had no choice but to carefully hop from rock to rock. But it was totally worth it. Inside, there were huge pieces of ice just lying around, one was stuck just in the gap just above our heads and you could see the melting ice dripping down into the stream. You could also see how the valley got more and more narrow the farther you go. It was really impressing but we were to afraid to continue and walk below the melting ice as we did not want to get crushed under a falling chunk of ice – they are really heavy! I once tried lifting one as big as a watermelon and I failed because I didn’t expect it to be so heavy.

Again, we kind of endet up ad a beautiful place just because we decided to see what happens and where we will get – I think this is just how Iceland works. Do not just keep stuck to the travel guide, explore a little on your own and go where not all the tourists go. You will see beautiful places you would not have been able to see else.

Needless to say, when going back to the apartment, we decided for the road along the coast instead of the road up the glacier we came from in the morning.

Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is probably the most popular thing in Iceland as it is a day-roundtrip reachable from Reykjavik with lots of places on the way that kind of cover all the stuff you can find in Iceland, just in mini-version. This means there is a waterfall, a lavafield, a view on the glacier, a vulcano crater with a unusually blue lake in it, some stunning landscapes, a little viking heritage, sheep on the street and einbreidbrús (I will write about them in my next and last post about Iceland) and even the only Geysir that regularily bursts water into the air.

Of course, you can't compare it with all the experiences we made while driving around the whole island, but it was for sure worth our while. We were even amazed again, after all this two weeks of overly thrilling places, overwhelming experiences and exhausting travel.

As we knew there will be lots of tourists because there are maaany tours from Reykjavik leaving daily and even as much individual travelers going there we decided to get up early and reach the first spot before the tour busses arrive. This worked quite well, the first place was a valley/national park where vikings used to have a village. There is almost nothing left of this village but it was really beautiful here.

Again I felt the urge to hike and explore the whole national park even if I knew I wouldn't get far. When we left we saw the tourists becoming more and more, just standing above the valley taking their pictures while we were walking and exploring it. This is why the first tour busses quickly caught up with us - they did not spend so much time in one location.

Next stop was the Geysir. This was the thing we all were looking forward to and it was quite hard exploring it because we knew the Geysir would only burst every 10-15 minutes so we felt like we had to watch it all time not to miss a thing. But then we also wanted to explore the area because there used to be another, even bigger Geysir around and again there were pools of boiling mud and steaming water everywhere around and even a small hilltop to climb on top of - we just couldn't resist, we had to get to the top and see it all from above.

When just staring at the Geysir and waiting for what it would do next, we realized how sleepy we actually were. We could have probably stared at it endlessly but at some point it got cold.

Afterwards we visited the Gullfoss - it was said to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls of Iceland, also called the "Golden waterfall". To tell the truth, I kind of hoped more for a blue waterfall. Maybe it's more golden in the sun or maybe it really is impressing if you haven't seen each and every popular waterfall of Iceland before coming to Gullfoss. For me it was like Dettifoss without the stunning landscape around. But you could see the glacier all the water comes from while standing on top of the waterfall!

Then we had to realize we are actually way more tired than we expected so the next stop at some really nice and small village ended in us almost lying down in front of the church because it looked like a comfortable spot. But after considering the other tourists arriving at the same village, we found the motivation for a short walk into the nature where I napped on a really uncomfortable rock. I have no idea how I survived this vacation without severe backpain considering the heavy backpack and my diverse napping positions on different rocks I found.

This gave us enough energy to head to our last stop, Kerid, which is a vulcano crater filled with ground water. The water inside was neither steaming hot as the hotpots nor ice cold as the glacier water. It was just ground water, probably as cold as the sea. What I liked about this crater (beside from its beautiful shape of blue) was that you could just walk down to the lake, surround it, stick your finger into the water to feel its temperature. Nevertheless, I still consider Quilotoa Lagoon as the most beautiful crater lake I have ever seen. But I have this feeling that if I had visited Askja, a place in the highlands with a hot crater lake you can actually bathe in, I would have found the new most beautiful crater lake. Because I already accepted that Iceland always has the more beautiful spots than you have ever seen anywhere before.

West of Iceland

We arrived in the north of Iceland and we had to realize: It is freezing up here. Here we really have to wear everything we brought with us: scarf, gloves, all the warm jackets. Half the time it's raining as well so it's not just cold but also wet.

The good thing about the weather is that we normally tend to stay really long in one spot and then we are stressing to see everything we planned but right now there is plenty time to cook a decent meal at night or sleep in which is nice as well. So three days ago we visited a fjord where we were told lots of puffins live. And they really do!

So many puffins in just one spot! They only come here to brood so you can only watch them for a limited time of the year. And they are so cute! They are way smaller than expected and move a little bit like penguins. I also took a video, if you want to watch is you can ask me about it.

Afterwards we visited Dettifoss, the waterfall with the most amount of water of whole Europe as it is 100m wide and 40m deep. You can go there from two sides and we decided for the east side since we heard its the better photospot. What we did not expect were the 28km of gravel road to get there. Icelandic roads are just different. But there it was great! The whole area was perfect for practicing "the floor is lava" (for eventual later application), and again there was a smaller, even more beautiful waterfall just a little behind that gave a marvellous view on the whole canyon the river is in.

Then we were already heading to the next accommodation when out of nowhere this smoking mountain appeared. As we came closer, also the smell turned bad (like rotten eggs) and we decided we had to stop here and explore it. It was so cool! There was boiling mud and hot steam coming out of many holes of the mountain and the colours were so impressing!

We also hiked on top to get a view on all of it.

The next day started with a car breakdown. Fortunately it was only a flat tire and a car mechanic was really close so we could get it fixed. It was probably of the gravel road we were driving the day before. So then we visited a vulcanic lake that was so intensly blue you had to see it.

As the weather was bad we soon went on to the next spot that was at least partly indoors: a cave filled with naturally hot water that is like THE grotto. This is where one famous scene of Game of Thrones was shot. Unfortunately you can't bathe in the water as it is too hot right now. This the grotto I want for my dreamhouse. Exactly this one!

Also, this is the place where the eurasian and the american tectonic plates meet. You can just hop from one side to the other. We started to wonder how long it would take for the edges to drift further apart for one meter.

Then we just drove around the lake as it was so cold and wet everytime we left the car and we were just freezing. So we decided to hit the natural bath of Myvatn where the water is up to 40 degrees depending on where you are and the water is so blue it looks like photoshopped. Fun thing is that you can only move slowly and almost can't swim in the water. It is kinda weird to sit in the hot water while it is freezing outside. The rest of the evening was quite relaxed.

Today we started with sleeping in, fulfilling the wish of my travel companions of a big breakfast. Then we put on all the clothes we had (in the end I was wearing 4 layers of trousers) and went to Husavik for a unique whale watching experience. We were really lucky, we saw so many whales and some of them even jumped for us! Also here I have several videos, just ask me for it!

Then we visited the in my opinion most beautiful waterfall in Iceland, the Godafoss. It was falling down into a canyon and the water was just so blue. Again it was a different shade of blue we haven't seen before. Also you could climb to almost the point where the river starts falling and just chill out.

This waterfall started a discussion in the car which one of the waterfalls was the most beautiful until now. We couldn't get to a conclusion. But let's see, maybe we even spot a more beautiful one on our way on. It is so strange, there is still one week to go and I feel like being here for an eternity already, measuring on all the things we have seen and experienced. Nothing can compare to this country.

Land of Ice

The last two days we spent on the east coast of Iceland, driving along continiously changing landscapes while visiting as much as possible in this short time. In contrast to the colourful highlands of Iceland, the east coast relies on simplicity.

First stop was the black beach in front of Vik, also known as the most dangerous beach of Iceland with many warning signs not to swim here (seriously, who does that?). Thd spectacular thing was not the black colour of the beach. Actually, all the beaches we have been to in Iceland are black and I guess that's because the whole island was created by volcanos. The first thing that caught our eye were the rock formations all around which were truly unique.

But my highlight were not the colours nor the rocks. Because when going a little further from the tourists, suddenly a sea lion appeared in the water just in front of us! And even a little further from there, puffins were flying around, sitting in the cliffs behind us or diving in the water for food. I never imagined they would be so small. Of course, we couldn't take any photos of them.  Again, it was totally worth it just to go a little further than the first photospot all the tourists stopped at.

Afterwards, after a long drive up north we did a short stop at nationalpark Skaftafell to visit the waterfall Svatifoss which was said to be impressing. It was completely foggy up there but the moment we reached the waterfall it suddenly cleared a bit so we could watch it in all its beauty.

Afterwards, with some circumstances leading to a almost 2 hour detour (always fill up the tank when you can!) we decided to leave the next highlight for today: Jökulsarlon, the ice lagoon. It is mostly a big lake next to the glacier where parts of the glacier break away and drift as icebergs through the lagoon and afterwards into the sea.

The colours of this whole spectacle were impressing. I never knew ice could be so blue. And it was so cold even if it was a sunny day. If you got closer to the ice you could almost feel the degrees drop to an icy coldness surrounding you.

Some icebergs that drifted away into the sea were stuck at the beach due to the currents. This lead to ice lying around everywhere at the beach. That's why they call it "diamond beach". With the black beach, the contrast was even more intense.

After this and a long drive through the fjords of east Iceland, we decided to take it easy in the evening and take some time to relax as our days are all packed with stuff we want to see. For me this is really hard because I always have this voice in my mind that says I can relax at home and only have limited time to explore this country that is so full of beautiful and extraordinary things to explore. I always want to see more, get out the most of it, use the time most efficiently. Also I take my time to relax in the car or while the others eat - efficiently. But somehow most people can't keep up with that and also seem to have different priorities. I really hope we don't have to miss out on anything in the end.

Landmannalaugar

It's the second day in Iceland and we already found the perfect spot. It's so perfect, we started planning on never going on vacation anywhere else but Iceland. Because if you come here for three months each summer you get used to not having summer and you wouldn't want to go somewhere else anyway after you have been here.

So we read there is this beautiful spot in the icelandic highlands. Unfortunately you could only get there with four wheel drive as you have to cross unbridged rivers and the streets are really bad. We decided we want to come anyways so we found a bus. I have never seen an offroad bus but this was the perfect vehicle to take us deep behind the glaciers.

We got up really early as tge drive was almost three hours. We thought we could catch up on sleep in the bus but - Iceland is just so beautiful and unique! I think I saw more different landscapes during the time of zhe drive than I have in my life before. It was just so overwhelming. And we weren't even there yet!

When we arrived, the first thing that caught my eye was this amazing colourful mountain - which obviously is a vulcano as there was steam coming out below the top. I fell in love immediately. We did a hike that took us many hours (because we didn't even make it 50 meters without stopping for a photo. Here started measuring places in ppm - photos per meter).

This was the most beautiful hike I ever did. After each turn the view was even more stunning and at some point I had troubles even comprehending all the beauty I am in. First over the lava field, then through the steaming rocks, with the greatest panoramas I have ever seen. Words can't even describe properly the caleidoscope of colours, the roughness of the mountains or the unspoiled vulcanic nature surrounding us.

I don't think I can ever look at Austrian mountains the same way again. And then there was the hot spring! It was actually a river but it has hot water and you can go swimming there almost next to the snowfields that are still here in July because I guess they just never completely melt.

If you ever visit Iceland, go to Landmannalaugar. Seriously, you don't want to miss out on it. I am already thinking about maybe coming back here for hiking. If Iceland continues impressing me like this I will have to spend every coming vacation here.

Iceland

If you had told me half a year ago that I will be traveling to Iceland this summer, I would have laughed and asked why I would do that. I would have named many reasons against it like "too expensive", "too cold", "you have to start planning it way earlier". But still somehow I ended up here, spending my summer evening on vacation wearing my warmest sweather, going to bed early to catch the early bus tomorrow to the nationalpark. How did this happen?

When I was in Colombia for a semester abroad, a friend visited me to travel Colombia together for a month. This same friend will now start her exchange semester in an icelandic university. So of course I had to visit her. And the best time is either before the semester starts or after the semester ends. And since traveling Iceland in December is definitely an adventure but way (!) too cold for me, we decided to better travel together before semester starts in August. So here I am, because it's out of question I would visit her.

Another friend joined and so did her boyfriend and now we are on our roadtrip trough Iceland together, today being the first day. We started from Reykjavik airport and our first stops were severall waterfalls on the way. It is just magical - there is water coming out of the mountains everywhere, and behind each turn it seems like there is another glacier to be spotted. The colours are so different from home with all the black rocks and the light green moss. And on each spectacular sight you visit, you have to just go a little further and find a place even more spectacular.

Each hiking trail we find, I feel the tug to walk along and just take some days off, hiking along ths trail of this fascinating country. I am sure you could spend months here exploring the trails and still not be bored. Unfortunately we have to fit the whole country into two tight weeks. So we try to do some kind of best-of of the most iconic places. Let's see how this works out.