Iceland was fantastic!
I neglected to mention earlier that I was going with my fiancé. We did the classic tourist itinerary: explore Reykjavic – Golden Circle Tour – Blue Lagoon. We added a bit of horse trekking to round out our four days. Every moment was amazing. Despite a nearly constant drizzle and overcast skies, the weather was fine. Pretty much what I’m used to from the Pacific Northwest, actually. Because of the overcast skies, we didn’t get to see any Northern Lights. But since we were there over the holidays, pretty much every night included fireworks somewhere on the horizon. We took that as our consolation prize.
As for “the crunch,” as the recession is referred to in Iceland, we found prices to be comparable to NYC. Inflation has set in a bit, apparently, as tour prices are up about 15% from a few months ago. But obviously everything was still much more affordable than usual. We used credit cards the whole time, which gave a better exchange rate than trading for ISK cash anyway.
Some of the highlights:
Museums: The preserved foundation of an ancient long house—unearthed during the construction of the hotel we stayed in—serves as the center of the coolest museum we visited, the Settlement Museum. It was sort of Star Trek meets Archaeology class. The word “multimedia” doesn’t really sum it up. From huge touch screen maps to user-controlled 3D tours, the museum was high-tech without overshadowing the interesting historical content. All the museums we visited were very well done. As good as the best parts of the Met in NYC.
Nature: The Golden Circle tour is a classic tourist orbit which visits the site of Iceland’s first parliament in 930, a number of beautiful waterfalls, and Geysir (the origin of the word). Despite being winter, and at times because of it, this was a wonderful adventure. One of the worst things about seeing things like this in most parts of the world (from Old Faithful to Tai Shan) is that there are always a ton of people, and things can get quite touristy. Not so in the Icelandic winter. Also, our Canadian tour guide, who has lived in Reykjavic for 40 years, was full on interesting insights.
Restaurants: The food was top-notch. I’ve eaten at some very fine restaurants, but several of the meals I had in Reykjavic are in my top ten all-time best. We expected extremely fresh fish and other local ingredients. We did not expect the degree of culinary skill and innovation we experienced. Truly Reykjavic competes with Paris and NYC for best gourmet restaurants. At the other end of the spectrum, our simple lunches of fish soup (and even a cheeseburger on one day), were also very good. The trip would have been worth every penny for the food alone. (In particular, Fish Market, Sjávarkjallarinn, and Icelandic Fish & Chips were all world-class.)
Pools: The thermal pools were also, on their own, enough to justify the whole trip. We visited the city pool called Vesturbaerlaug on two consecutive mornings. It was enough to make me want to move to Iceland. Starting the day with a warm swim in the cold air was awesome. The big kahuna of thermal pools, Blue Lagoon, also totally lived up to the hype. We went there at night on our last day. It was windy, and rainy, and generally nasty outside. The guide books often describe Iceland as otherworldly, but this was the only experience I had that truly fit the label. We were two of maybe fifteen bathers, with the place mostly to ourselves. Swimming through the choppy, warm, milky waves without being able to see the edges of the lagoon through the steam was eerie and extraordinarily fun.
Thanks for all the advice. I heartily recommend this trip to anyone with the time and money.
Damn, it’s good! But as I’m online for a few minutes I might as well make up a short answer.
