Before we departed for Iceland my mother told me a story about one of her friends getting turned away from an international trip at the airport because of a missing “blue” form. My inner smart ass explained that this was called a passport but she swore up and down that this was something different. Devin and I checked to make sure we were in the clear. To the best of our ability it did not appear that Iceland had cancelled the Schengen Agreement so our passports should work just fine. We posed with our travel documents and texted my mother to let her know we had all the travel documents in hand.
Departure
We took off from Nashville with a layover in Dulles and after flying through the night and landed in Reykjavik in the morning. Retrieving our luggage and headed to the rental car area we got hooked up with a small but capably looking hatchback. The speedometer section of the car looked really odd and small but I had no one to blame as they put me in the most American of car manufacturers.
Þingvellir National Park
We would being staying the night in Reykjavik but we wanted to fight off the jet lag by getting out and doing the Golden Circle tour. The Golden Circle is a popular tourist route in southern Iceland. Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park which is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. The tectonic activity creates many rifts in the ground filled with absolutely clear water. We found a waterfall and explored the park.
Gullfoss
After enjoying the park for a couple of hours we headed for Gullfoss or Golden Falls (Probably where the Golden Circle got its name from.) Even though it was in the 40s Fahrenheit the wind was so unrelenting that we realized we had forgotten gloves and our hands retreated into our pockets. We did have our warm hats to keep our heads warm. The falls were definitely worth the cold but we were glad to get back in the car.
Strokkur
Our last stop on our Golden Circle was the Strokkur geyser and other assorted geothermic features. Strokkur erupts every 6 – 10 minutes at a height of 50 – 60 feet. As with most geothermic features there was alluring/romantic scent of sulfur in the air. I was excited to head back to Reykjavik to recover from our jet lag and take a nice long sleep.
