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!