Museums, Goodbye and Final Thoughts

Reykjavik | The Golden Circle | Northern Lights | Snæfellsnes Peninsula | South Side

We tried to sleep in but we were awakened by the garbage truck…ggrrr. We packed our luggage and loaded up the car, we had to be out of the apartment by 11am. We walked the city a bit and picked up more souvenirs, we went back to Braud & Co. for a cinnamon roll (GET ONE!) and then it was time to go. Even though Reykjavik is a relatively safe city I was really nervous about leaving our luggage exposed in the car; because of this we didn’t linger in the city for too long. And in my haste to leave and get back to our car filled with luggage I forgot to go into Hallgrimskirkja to get pictures and climb to the top. Next time!

Reykjavik Street Art

We headed to the Perlan Museum to see what that was about. It was an interesting museum where you would get the geological background of Iceland, learn about glaciers (and even walk into a man made one! If you pay the extra fee). You can also pay extra to walk around the top and get a bird’s eye view of Reykjavik. As much as I wanted to get good pictures it was rainy, and I really didn’t want to pay extra to stand in the rain.  One of their exhibits was under construction and in general I found it hard to get around the museum. Maybe that was due to the construction on the new exhibit.

Top Right: Walking in a glacier at the Perlan; Others: Viking World

We left Reykjavik around lunch time and headed to The Bridge between Continents, part of the Reykjanes Geopark. On our way over we saw some of the air and nautical teams of the NATO activity taking place on the island, that was pretty cool. Back to the geopark, the geopark is the only place in the world where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is visible above sea level. The bridge is built over the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate; and the plates are pulling away from each other at a rate of about 0.8 inches per year. When you visit the bridge, you are also able to walk in between the two plates! So, this leads me to a very important question, when you’re between the two plates, where are you?!

The Bridge between Continents

After the geopark we headed to Viking World Museum. The museum’ building is gorgeous from an architectural standpoint, but I was bit disappointed with what was on display. The only thing they have in the museum is a replica of a Viking ship that sailed the same path as past Vikings did, but they did it in the 90’s. I thought this would be a good place to waste some time before our flight, but we were only there for 30 minutes. Then we headed to grab some lunch before we headed to the airport.

Once at the airport we returned our car and walked to the terminal. We arrived a little over 4hrs before our flight in hopes of upgrading to WOW’s premium seats because you are unable to do this over the phone. But WOW only has employees at the departure desk 3 hours before takeoff. So, we waited. Turns out, someone snatched the last remaining premium seats, so we were stuck with our XXL seats. We walked around the airport a bit, did some last minute shopping and then headed to our gate and waited some more. Finally, it was time to board and head home!

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip and do want to go back. Iceland is a place you’ll want to see in all its different seasons. I would like to go back during the summer and do the ring road (covering the whole island) and in the dead of winter (just to experience it). If we had added a few more days to our trip I think it would have satisfied me. Its a beautiful and unique country, we saw more vivid rainbows to last a lifetime! And SO many waterfalls! 

Have you been to Iceland? What did you like about it? Did you dislike anything?

South Side

Reykjavik | The Golden Circle | Northern Lights | Snæfellsnes Peninsula

On our last full day in Iceland we had scheduled a glacier hike. It was dark and rainy as we made our way to the Solheimajökull Glacier. Solheimajökull Glacier is part of the larger Mýrdalsjökull Glacier and sits between two active volcanoes, Katla and Eijafjallajökull (that’s the one that erupted in 2010 causing air traffic delays all over Europe). We booked out guided tour with Arctic Adventures via Marriott Moments (…because points…duh!). We had a great guide from Lithuania who was knowledgeable and patient with the people in our group that were taking too many selfies. The landscapes were pretty amazing, to see a glacier, lava rock, green mountains and rainbow all in one picture was astounding! It was also eye opening to see how much and how fast the glacier was melting.

After the hike we went to Reynisfjara Beach, Iceland’s deadliest beach. Its deadly because it has waves called “sneaker waves” that sort of come out of nowhere. A lot of people were taking their chances and my husband was just waiting to capture one on video. And we did! You can see me in the video with the purple rain jacket on. Someone had asked me to take a picture of their group and I just had a feeling I shouldn’t take my eye off the ocean. And I was right! There was a café here and pay-to-use bathrooms (when we visited they hadn’t been cleaned in a while so I was kind of pissed I paid to use a filthy bathroom).

To end our day of site seeing we swung by the famous Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss waterfalls. Skógafoss was BIG! Its hard to capture a picture without anyone else in the back ground but we managed to get a few. There is a staircase where you can walk to the top and walk along the river a bit to see more waterfalls. Again, people were getting awfully close to the cliff’s edge to take pictures (upcoming post, “How to Die in Iceland”). The staircase was killer, I’m an avid runner and I thought it was tough! And I even saw people trying to walk up it heels; ladies lets forget the fashion statements for a moment wear something functional!

Seljalandsfoss

Skógafoss

Seljalandsfoss is cool because you can walk behind it. And the water just pours off the cliff! It started to rain on us here but we were prepared with our full rain gear, pants included! There is a gift shop and small café/food truck here. The café had really good soup and pastries! And hot chocolate! With the rain and cool temperatures, I needed a hot chocolate! You also had to pay to park at this stop. I’m not sure if they enforce it but we paid anyway.

We made it back to our AirBnB and we were tired! We really just wanted to order pizza. Iceland does have Domino’s and I really don’t care what your opinion is on Domino’s, but I love them. But they wanted to test me a confirmation number to place my order and I didn’t have cell service, so we couldn’t order delivery. We decided to just walk there. And as we were walking we found a local pizza joint, Eldsmiðjan and ended up just popping in there and we were really glad we did. We had garlic break, pizza, beer and fresh Coke Zero (I LOVE Coke Zero by the way. And when I say fresh I mean from a soda fountain).

Over all, this day was just a really great day!

Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Reykjavik | The Golden Circle | Northern Lights

We started this day with high hopes of hiking to see the Glymur waterfall, Iceland’s second tallest waterfall. But since we didn’t end up going to be until past 2am the night before/morning of because we were watching the northern lights we were pretty tired…and decided to sleep in.

We started the day at Braud & Co. with some pastries and then headed out the peninsula. Its about a two and half hour drive to get out there and on the drive I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open! Thank goodness I was not the driver for the trip. We made it to Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss and snapped our pictures. There is not a lot of parking here so you may need to pull a few u-turns before parking, we did.

Drive to  Snæfellsnes Peninsula 

Kirkjufell and Kirkjufellsfoss

We continued driving along the coast through Snæfellsjökull National Park and parked at Djúpalónssandur Beach where we did some walking around and wave watching.

Snæfellsjökull National Park

Then we made our way around the peninsula to Gatklettur and Bárðar Saga Snæfellsáss Statue. It’s a long the coast with some pretty rock formations. After looking at the map again it looks like we missed some other cool rock formations off the coast. Nuts! Next time. 

 And the last thing I wanted to see on this peninsula was a “petite church in a picturesque locale” known as Búðakirkja. Its described on Google as a, “Tiny wooden church dating back to the 19th century in a scenic natural area with a lava field.” It’s a cute little church and it really is picturesque.

Búðakirkja

We made the long drive back to Reykjavik, changed and went out for some food. We didn’t really want to wait to get our food so we want to a place close by called Roadhouse Reykjavik. It was a burger joint that served you your food in record time. Seriously, they were frozen burger patties that were flavored up with extras to make them good. I thought it was just okay but after a long day anything would have been good.

You can click here to hear the pronunciation of Snæfellsnes.

Northern Lights

One of the main reasons we wanted to visit Iceland was to see the northern lights. We visited in mid-October, so we knew we had a chance. Instead of trying to rally and see them the day we landed we scheduled our outing for the next night.

We booked our tour with Happy World and here is why it was worth it:

·         They picked you up right at your door step (or hotel). Since we were staying at an AirBnB this was perfect since all we had to do was step outside

·         They took professional pictures and gave us copies of every. single. one. It was about 100 pictures from the night

·         They had a telescope for star gazing

·         Served us homemade hot chocolate and Icelandic pastries

·         And stayed past the official end of the tour to capture more pictures

So, the tour ran from 8pm to midnight. It was pretty cloudy but that night the kp index was good so we had our fingers crossed. You could definitely see the bands/ribbons behind some of the clouds. Midnight rolled around and hadn’t really seen a clear shot of illusive lights. There was a break in the clouds coming our way and guides told us we would wait for that opening and keep our fingers crossed. When that opening reached us we looked up and there they were! Dancing above us with a beautiful coronal display.

It was amazing to say the least. We ended up staying out there till about 1am.

We were very fortunate to see the northern lights since the remainder of our trip stayed cloudy and overcast.

The Golden Circle | Day 1; Reykjavik 

The Golden Circle

Read about our arrival and soak in the Blue Lagoon here: Day 1; Reykjavik. On to day two... 

We got an early start to our Golden Circle day. The Golden Circle is made up of a bunch of iconic Icelandic sites and the roads you take to see them sort of makes a circle.

Our first stop was Þingvellir National Park. We arrived around 8:30 and it was misting. We got out at the visitor center took some pictures and hoped back in the car and headed to parking lot 5 further down the road. By this time it was raining and we both said that given the option we would rather not start a hike in the rain. And the parking payment station was out or order so we didn’t know how to pay for parking.

Þingvellir National Park

Next, we stopped at the Geysir Geothermal Area which was awesome! It was the first time either of us had seen a geyser and it was just so cool to see it go off ever few minutes.

 After the geyser we stopped to take part in Horsepetting at Margeiri, Bru's Farm. And that is exactly how you type it into Google Maps to find it! It was 200isk to get some “candy” for the horses and pet them. They weren’t really in the mood to be petted and just wanted some treats.

Waterfalls were next! Gullfoss Waterfall and Faxifoss. We had our packed lunch at Gullfoss before we hit the road for Faxifoss (packing our own sandwiches is a way to keep the budget on track!). 

Top pictures: Gullfoss Waterfall, bottom waterfall is Faxifoss

After the falls was viewing and hiking into Kerið. There is a small fee associated with visiting this site. Kerið was formed about 6,500 years ago and lies at the northern end of a row of craters known as Tjarnarholar, It is oval, about 885.8 ft long and 557.7 ft wide and 180 ft deep: the depth of the water at the bottom varies between 23 and 46 ft deep.

And last on our list for the Golden Circle was Raufarholshellir Lava Tube. They give tours every hour on the hour and it’s a good idea to get there about 30 minutes prior to get in on the tour as they only take about 20 people in at a time. This too has an entrance fee since it is on private property and requires a guide.

Left: Raufarholshellir Lava Tube; Right: Kerið

There were a few sites on the Golden Circle itinerary that we did not get to see: Bruarfoss Waterfall, because, per Google maps, the only way to get there was by using a private drive that was closed off by a gate. And I did not know this and didn’t know if there was another way to get there. And Laugarvatn Fontana, a geothermal bath spa. We didn’t stop here because they were not open when we passed by, they open at 11am. I really wanted to stop here because they also bake bread in the ground using geothermal heat…something for next time!

We made it home with just over an hour to spare before our northern lights tour!

Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland…WOW! Let’s start with some basics. We flew WOW Airlines and we were pretty happy with them. Their call center totally blows so if you need to call them, good luck. But you do get what you paid for. We paid for the XXL seats which included one checked bag, one carry on bag, a meal and extra, extra leg room. The only problem was the seats weren’t at all comfortable. But we made it there!

We landed at Keflvik Airport around 11am, collected our rental car via Blue Car Rental and headed for the Blue Lagoon. Our appointment at the lagoon was at 1pm and we arrived around 12:30 but had no issues getting in. Everything at the lagoon works off a wristband you get at check-in; its how you’ll get into your locker and how you’ll get your drinks and silica masks.

The hot water was AMAZING right after our 6-hour flight. We had our drinks, did our silica masks and just relaxed. Before you enter the lagoon you have to shower, and if you plan on getting your hair wet they recommend putting in their leave-in conditioner. Even though I had no intention of getting my hair wet I put in the conditioner anyway, I didn’t want to take the chance of the silica drying out my hair. We were here for probably about an hour (changing and soak time). There wasn’t as many changing rooms as there was showers so after we got out and I showered I snatched a changing room since I pretty much had to unpack and repack all my crap. In the women’s locker room they have blow-dryers, some toiletries and plastic bags available for you to put your wet items in.

Blue Lagoon, Iceland

After our Blue Lagoon soak we arrived at our AirBnB in Reykjavik right at 3pm. I seriously cannot express how amazing our apartment was. It was perfect for the two of us and would have been great even if we had brought the kido along. It was within a five-minute walk from the Sun Voyager sculpture, Hallgrimskirkja Church and Laugavegur Street (lots of shops here).

City views of Reykjavik, Iceland

The first thing we did after dropping our belongings off was go grocery shopping for the week. We bought some of the popular Icelandic yogurt, sandwich makings and some fruit, sweets and drinks. Brought all of those back to the apartment and then headed out to take pictures of the city. We walked to the Sun Voyager, then made our way down the harbor to Harpa and then stopped for dinner at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, a hot dog stand made popular by the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton. After that we walked to Eldur og Ís for some ice cream and crepes and stopped in shops along the way.

Hot dogs from Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur and a crepe from Eldur og Ís

We were back at the apartment by 6:30pm and I was in bed by 7pm since we didn’t get any sleep on the plane.

Have you ever been to Iceland?

Thanksgiving in the South: Louisville, Kentucky

As I get back into this whole blogging thing and I was looking over my past blogs I realized I did not post about our Thanksgiving trip to Louisville, Kentucky. Back in the day I had just a travel blog, travel mi amor. And then I got pregnant and realized that maybe I couldn't just focus on travel anymore because my brain and life were shifting in a major way. So I created the spotted bulldog; a mix of travel and lifestyle blogging named after my sweet Lola.

SO....about Louisville...

As many of our friends know my husband and I are really into travel hacking...you know collecting hotel and airline rewards points and getting to travel for free...In late 2017 we only needed three more nights to keep our Platinum status with Marriott so we decided to meet family in Louisville, KY for Thanksgiving.

Louisville is abut a 7.5 hour drive for us so we left the day before Thanksgiving and arrived at the Marriott located downtown and settled in for the night. Our daughter, who was 2.5 yrs at the time, traveled great! We were on the cusp of potty training so when she wanted out she would tell us she had to potty. But we learned quickly that she was playing us! Once we arrived we were pretty surprised that a lot of restaurants were already closed for the holiday. We finally found found some burgers and went back to the hotel.

On Thanksgiving day we headed to the Belle of Louisville Riverboats for our Thanksgiving lunch cruise. It was nice not to have to cook and the food was good for what it was. However, the scenery wasn't all that great, that part of the Ohio River is pretty industrialized, but you got a little history about the city. Later in the evening we drove to the Mega Cavern to see the Christmas lights. The Mega Cavern is a man made cavern that was created by a massive limestone quarry. Now its used as a storage facility, adventure park and during the holidays, a light display.

The next day we headed to the Louisville Slugger factory and museum. As an engineer its always fun to see how things are made and we all really enjoyed the entire facility. After that it was off to the races at Chuchill Downs! I had never been to a race track before and I have to say it was pretty fun! My mother-in-law and I took Alana into the Kentucky Derby museum and the guys started to place their bets. I wasn't a fan of the mint julips but it was super fun to place bets and win a little.   

Saturday we were back on the road headed north. It was a short trip but it was fun! Before we had kids we would travel over Thanksgiving every year, hitting up Key West and Hawaii twice. And after doing it again in 2017 we remembered how much we enjoyed it.

Is there a holiday you like to get away for?