Eating, hiking and driving around Southern Iceland

[KennethT]

Hello!  And welcome to the official edition of my traveling around southern Iceland foodblog.  We just got home around midnight last night, so I'm a little tired/jetlagged but hopefully this will make some sense as I work on this over the next couple of days.

 

Iceland is otherworldly beautiful - the landscape constantly changes as you drive through it, from moss covered lava fields to hay fields (they just finished baling) to miles (kilometers?) of stark nothingness to moss covered mountains and snow covered peaks.  Hopefully you'll get a good sense of this as you read along - I'm going to be adding some videos also that will help illustrate some things which pictures can't really do justice to.

 

One thing to note is that, contrary to most of our other trips to SE Asia, Iceland is exhorbitantly expensive - from fuel to food.  I don't know how much is being affected by the war in Ukraine, but I am of the understanding that no matter what, it's always expensive there.  For example, fuel prices averaged 345 Krona per liter, which at the current rate of exchange of about 130 Krona/US$, works out to $10.22 per gallon!  Obviously this is not the best time for a driving vacation, but this was originally scheduled for July 2020 and we all know how that worked out.  Meals in a simple cafe (kaffi) are expensive - a standard burger was typically over $17!  I don't think food prices are affected by Ukraine so much as it seems as though just about all the animal proteins are grown locally, most being free range/grass fed - I read that Iceland is self sustainable with meat/dairy with no imports necessary.  Vegetables (at least that I saw in the summer) usually came from local farms or a restaurant's own garden.  We've tried to take photos of menus to give a sense of things.

 

One more interesting tidbit before I get on with the show is the use of English.  It seemed that everyone I dealt with - from the gas station attendant to waiter to hotel staff to tour guide spoke better English than I did.  As right now is super peak season, there were tons of tourists, many of them were surprisingly to me American.  I don't think I've seen such a high proportion of American tourists in a foreign country I've visited, ever.

 

So, flying over the area in preparation for landing, you can see a good example of landscape right off the bat - huge tracts of nothing - or more specifically, undisturbed moss covered lava fields:

 

 

We landed around 9:30AM local time, which is 4 hours ahead of my standard Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  The flight left late at night, and I worked a full day that day which means that by the time we picked up the rental car, I had been up for over 24 hours straight - the flight is so short (about 5 hours from NYC) that there's really no time to get any sleep.  And since we had about an hour and a half drive to check into our first hotel, it makes this an absolute necessity:

 

 

Just driving away from the airport is gorgeous:

 

 

We checked into our hotel just around lunchtime and since we were exhausted and starving, we opted to have lunch there.  The hotel's restaurant is really only open for breakfast (included with the room rate) and dinner but they will make you a "box lunch" upon request...  Since it was beautiful out - about 55F and sunny, we decided to have it on our patio.

 

 

Upon closer inspection, it looks like this:

 

 

A simple ham and cheese sandwich with mayo and cucumber with a slice of some kind of tart (which we'll also see at breakfast) and some fruit.  Interestingly enough, the apple was from France.

 

After we rested a bit, we decided to do a bit of sightseeing.  This hotel has good proximity for the Golden Circle sights - which are commonly seen on day trips for people staying in Reykjavik.  I had allotted about a day and a half for these since one of the days will be spent doing a big hike in the interior highlands a couple hours away.

 

The first stop - Kerid crater formed by volcanic activity and is basically filled with groundwater - the level of the water in the crater rises and falls with ground water levels but never actually drains.

 

 

You can take the stairs down to the bottom:

 

 

From the bottom:

 

 

After viewing the crater, we went to dinner in Selfoss, which is the major town near our hotel.  Outside of these types of towns, there is literally nothing except landscape.

 

I had done a bunch of research before the trip, and found a few places in Selfoss that I had wanted to try - we'd only get to some of them though as well see later.

 

First dinner: Krisp

 

 

Overall, the food was really tasty here.  We forgot to take photos of the menu, but prices were in the range of most other places we went to, which you'll see later on.

 

 

Local cod tempura - I was surprised to see chillies being used all over the place in Iceland - fresh chillies, chilli jam, pickled chillies... served breakfast to dinner!

 

Grilled local lamb (all Iceland lamb is free range) with roasted potatoes smothered in the same sauce as came with the tempura - like a citrus aioli.  I don't know what cut of lamb they used - it was perfectly cooked, but you can see different muscle groups:

 

Local wolf fish on barley with some kind of fruit compote on top - to tell the truth, I don't remember it much but I was exhausted by that point.  It was really tasty though.

Edited July 10, 2022 by KennethT (log)

[KennethT]

Also interesting to note - this was our only trip to Europe where we had barely bought any bottled water.  In fact, in the supermarkets, you don't really see any bottles of normal water - sparkling or flavored, but not regular water.  This is because all tap water in Iceland is from glacial melt and is super clean and pure.  It's also quite tasty as it's filled with minerals (which doesn't really help when you want to shower!)  In fact, you can even drink any water you find there - whether it's a small stream when you're hiking (as long as the water is clear and doesn't have any sediment from agitation) or from a waterfall to the water we went snorkling in the following day!

[Anna N]

@KennethT

is tipping a custom or is a service fee built into the cost of your food in restaurants?  

Edited July 10, 2022 by Anna N
Typo (log)

[KennethT]

The next day, we had to be out early (before the hotel's breakfast, which was only from 8-10!) so they gave us some pastry to grab - the full breakfast will be featured in the next day's segment.  We had about an hour's drive to Thingvellir National Park, home of Silfra - supposedly the only place in the world where you can snorkel between two tectonic plates, as Iceland straddles both the North American and Eurasian plates.  The Silfra canyon was formed during an earthquake which opened to revel glacial melt groundwater.  It is said to have some of the best visibility in the world - up to 100 meters!  I can definitely attest to that - in all the snorkeling/diving I've done, this was definitely the clearest water I've ever seen.  Basically, what you are looking at is the canyon - there are no fish, just rock and some neon algae type grass here and there.  The water in the canyon is about 37F, so the snorkel companies provide you with a dry suit which takes forever to put on but is fascinating.  It seals around everywhere so the only areas that get exposed to water are your face (your head is covered in a wet suit hood) and hands (covered in a wet suit mittens).  Typically, I keep my hands behind my back when snorkeling so my hands barely got wet!

 

They first suit you up in a warm underlayer which goes on over your base layers (thermal underwear/t-shirt etc).  My wife proudly models it after just coming out of the changing truck:

 

 

You then stand around while they fit everyone in your group (there were 5 of us) in the dry suits.  In parts of Iceland, it's REALLY buggy - little flies that don't seem to bite, but like to hang out around your face and annoy the crap out of you.  I had read about this and had planned accordingly getting bug nets for our heads for hiking, but in this case, all of your stuff goes into a dry bag which is stored outside (it was raining on and off) while you're snorkeling.

 

This is the route you take:

The parking lot dressing area is the circle on the right - they you walk to the left to the entry point.  The numbers in parentheses are the various depths.  Once you get to the end of the channel, you get a free swim time in the lagoon area, which I used to explore what they called "Little Silfra" which is the small channel just below the main one.

 

All suited up and ready to get in the water!

 

A group before us getting in the water.

 

The tour company takes underwater photos for you:

 

 

 

 

After getting out of the water, the company provided us with a snack (some kind of giant Icelandic Kit Kat) and hot chocolate - no photos because my phone was still tied up in the dry bag at this time.

 

After that, we drove off to get lunch - about a half an hours drive from Thingvellir.  I had read about this place:

 

 

Efstidalur - a family owned restaurant/farm/ice cream shop/hotel in the middle of nowhere.  Before getting to the front door, you pass their Icelandic horses, which you can ride (we didn't):

 

 

At the restaurant, you have the menu:

 

 

The beef for the burgers comes from their own cattle farm and the produce comes from their neighbor.  Note the prices - the cheapest burger (the Farmers) was 2800 Krona, about $21.50.  Once you order at the bar, they give you a number to put on your table in the dining room and they come find you.

 

Views from our table in the dining room:

They have a big window overlooking their cows.  Icelandic cows are special - they were supposedly brought over with the Vikings from Norway around 900AD when they settled Iceland and have remained unaltered ever since.  There is evidently some political controversy right now as some want to bring in some other breeds to cross like Jerseys (which is currently illegal) to increase the country's dairy production, but others say that the pure breed is integral to their traditions and heritage and don't want the change.

 

Facing the other way in the dining room:

 

Our view out the windows:

 

Skyrburger  -  skyr is a local dairy product similar to thick yogurt but it's even more tangy.

 

Farmer's burger

 

From all the activity (the snorkeling was hard because there were times you had to fight a current) I was starving and decided to get some ice cream before we left.

 

 

I got the salted caramel - which was fantastic - a nice slight bitterness on the caramel set off the sweetness well.

 

[KennethT]

39 minutes ago, Anna N said:

@KennethT

is tipping a custom or is a service fee built into the cost of your food in restaurants?  

There is no separate service charge on the bill, but it seems as though workers are paid living wages.  However, many places also have a tip jar at the register - most restaurants you pay at the register rather than paying at the table - and some people would put in a small amount depending on the size of the bill.

 

Also, tipping of guides is not very common - our Troll guides had a tip jar out for us while we were having our hot chocolate, but our glacier hike guide had no such thing.  He was amazing and I wanted to show my appreciation so I just gave it directly to him, but I don't think it was a common occurrence.

[KennethT]

The next stop on our Golden Circle route was Gullfoss - a large waterfall.  It's pretty impressive and you can get quite close to it - there's really no one there to stop you from doing anything other than a thin rope and a small sign here and there.

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop was to see Geysir - the original geysir from which the word was coined.  Nowadays, Geysir itself is inactive - it only erupts once maybe every 6-8 months or so and is unpredictable, but just a few steps away from it is Strokkur which erupts every 4-8 minutes or so....

 

 

We stood around in the rain for like 20 minutes to get this video since sometimes the eruptions are not very dramatic, and other times we would just miss one by a second or two.  I'm glad we were fully prepared for rain with rain pants, rain jacket, hat, shoes etc. - so we were nice and comfy and dry while most others standing around certainly were not!

 

By this point it was starting to get a little late, but we had wanted to see a waterfall named Bruarfoss because it's sort of off the tourist radar and is known for having the most remarkable blue color.  It was a bit of a hike to get there, and because of the constant on and off again rain, the trail could get quite muddy.  Plus there were tons of flies so we got a good use from our bug nets for our rain hats.

 

 

 

You can see how close you can get to these falls.... one slip and that's it!!

 

 

By this time it was getting late (it was still quite a drive to get back to civilization in Selfoss) so rather than continuing up the trail to see a few more waterfalls, we headed back.

 

By the time we got to Selfoss, it was past 9PM and all of the restaurants on my list had already closed or stopped serving.  One of the few places still open was the local shawarma restaurant (open until 11).  Something we've never seen before - it was a Kurdish restaurant, so it was actually great to try the spices they used!

 

 

It was pretty busy - there were a few people in there when we got there, and while we were there, there was a steady flow of customers.  I didn't take a photo of the menu/prices but you can see it here: https://www.kurdokebab.com/#menu  While in no way inexpensive, it was probably one of the cheapest meals we had (not including what's coming up, but that doesn't count!)

 

We got the Kurdo Plate with lamb:

Flavorful marinated lamb that was not overcooked, served with salad and tasty dressing.  In the cups was like a Tzaziki and a hot sauce.

 

 

Kurdo shawarma with chicken

 

And a side of fries:

 

I think the fries were coated in some kind of starch before frying but they were nice and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside - and stayed that way even once cooled.

[heidih]

Wow!  Nice meal too.

[blue_dolphin]

Wow - I’m speechless!

[heidih]

When my friend's son was shortly stationed in Greenland she kept drilling into me "Iceland is the pretty green one, and Greenland is the butt cold one" (we do have a base in Iceland)

[KennethT]

5 minutes ago, heidih said:

When my friend's son was shortly stationed in Greenland she kept drilling into me "Iceland is the pretty green one, and Greenland is the butt cold one" (we do have a base in Iceland)

The tale is that the Vikings named them in reverse as a way to keep other people out.  But Iceland is very very green... at least in summer!

[BonVivant]

8 hours ago, KennethT said:

Also interesting to note - this was our only trip to Europe where we had barely bought any bottled water.  In fact, in the supermarkets, you don't really see any bottles of normal water - sparkling or flavored, but not regular water.  This is because all tap water in Iceland is from glacial melt and is super clean and pure.  It's also quite tasty as it's filled with minerals (which doesn't really help when you want to shower!)  In fact, you can even drink any water you find there - whether it's a small stream when you're hiking (as long as the water is clear and doesn't have any sediment from agitation) or from a waterfall to the water we went snorkling in the following day!

 

The guide told us the only 2 things that are "cheap" there: geothermal energy and water.

The tap water tastes the best I've ever had. It smells a bit as soon as you turn on the tap but it's natural. Guide also said it's the only country where he would drink from a stream.

[Mjx]

9 hours ago, KennethT said:

. . . .

 

 

Local cod tempura - I was surprised to see chillies being used all over the place in Iceland - fresh chillies, chilli jam, pickled chillies... served breakfast to dinner!

 

. . . .

 

Thanks for sharing your gorgeous trip! Everytime I've flown through Iceland (read, 'all I've seen of Iceland is from the air, Keflavik airport, and what you can see from its windows'), I've promised myself an actual visit.

 

The Scandinavian countries are almost weirdly enthusiastic about chillies; part of it may have to do with the fact that you can easily grow them in a pot, even in a nordic climate, but I suspect that the traditional cuisines, which tend to be unrelentingly bland, do make some heat a very welcome addition in the kitchen.

[KennethT]

5 hours ago, Mjx said:

 I've promised myself an actual visit.

Not knowing what your other Scandinavian experiences have been, I would heartily recommend it.  Our trip through southern Iceland was beautiful - and we had a lot of quite unique experiences.  Some require a good level of activity (like hiking on an icefall (like a waterfall but ice) of Europe's largest ice cap but many can be viewed basically just off the main road.

[KennethT]

The next day we planned on a big hike in Landmannalager, inside the Fjallabak Nature Preserve.  This is on the Laugavegur trail which is a multi-day trek.  It's over a 2 hours drive from our hotel so we got up early - but we were still late enough to make the beginning of the hotel breakfast.  It's a small hotel but they had a pretty good buffet with some Icelandic specialties as well as the usual standards - scrambled eggs, etc.  I'm not usually a breakfast person (I never eat it usually) but since we're doing so much activity, I thought it was wise to stock up on calories.

 

At the top left is the same tart that we had for lunch the previous day - it's got a short, crumbly texture with some kind of fruit jam.  It wasn't too sweet but it was really tasty - I had it every day.  Next to that is cured salmon with mustard sauce (I got a lot more salmon later on) some cured meats - ham, something resembling salami and something resembling Canadian bacon, then two Icelandic cheeses - a fantastic bleu - not too salty and really tangy, and an Icelandic camembert.  At first, I thought the cheeses were imported from France, but then I saw these same cheeses in the supermarket and found them locally made.  I guess the authorities in France haven't caught on to them using the term "Camembert"!!!!  Also, some green tea.

 

Our companion for breakfast - the hotel had two Icelandic sheepdogs (one the grandmother of the other).  They had a great temperament and were very friendly.  They were the welcoming committee when we first arrived.  I don't know how, but they were somehow trained not to beg at the table or look at the food in any way.

 

Second round of breakfast:

Icelandic pancakes (like a crepe) with some really meaty local bacon, Icelandic butter and maple syrup.  Obviously, the maple syrup was imported (from Canada I think) as Iceland doesn't have any maple trees.  In fact we saw very few trees at all other than birch trees and some conifers - but a lot of low scrub type bushes and moss.  Lots and lots of moss.  Anyway, the pancakes were great and I had them every day in that hotel and missed them when I found the other hotels didn't have them.

 

After breakfast, we got into our hiking gear and stopped at the supermarket to pick up snacks for lunch as we didn't know what we'd find when we got to Landmannalager.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any photos of teh supermarket - we were kind of in a hurry to get going on the road.

 

Once on the road, the scenery was very nice and changed constantly.  Here's a hay field recently baled waiting for pickup:

 

 

This area of Iceland has a lot of single lane bridges on the main highway... some more remote ones have a wood deck.

 

 

Once you get about halfway to Landmannalager, you pull off the main paved highway onto what they call an F road.  F roads are unpaved roads that have minimal care and are closed seasonally during winter.  They typically go into the interior highlands.  In order to drive on them, you need a 4-wheel drive car for sure, and many F roads have some unbridged river crossings as well.  I wound up renting our car from a local Icelandic rental company since the international chains wouldn't allow driving on these roads, even if you purchase the full insurance and rent a 4x4 vehicle.  The local company I used had several types of insurance - the one I got basically covered everything - even if we completely flooded the engine in a river crossing.  It also gave us Wifi which had great coverage practically everywhere we went.

 

Driving on the F roads were a lot of fun - you drive on them for about an hour or so on the way to Landmannalager... a little taste driving through the lava fields:

 

 

Roads?  Where we're going, we don't need roads!

 

Here's us pulling into the Landmannalager area:

 

 

Once we got to the area, there's a parking lot and then 2 river crossing.  Normally, considering our insurance, I would have attempted the river crossings but it seemed to be a little early in the season and there was still a ton of snow still melting making the water level pretty high.  I watched a "super jeep" - like a Jeep Wrangler on steroids cross and the water got halfway up the door - and those tires were huge!  So, we decided to park in the parking lot (we got the 2nd to last space there!) and walk the rest of the way - the rivers had small foot bridges.

 

Before getting going, we decided to have "lunch" in the car as it was already past 12PM.

 

A nice loaf - it was still warm when we picked it up at the supermarket!

 

Amazing strawberries (from the Netherlands).  They put our US strawberries to shame (except for home grown ones)

 

 

 

Lamb sticks - these were fantastic.  A dried, cured lamb sausage.  We were looking for these the rest of the trip!

 

The view for our picnic:

 

 

There are a few possible hikes in Landmannalager - we were planning to do the Brennisteinsalda-Blahnukur loop, but because of the conditions, it made for slow going, so we only wound up going to the summit of Brennisteinsalda, a dormant volcano.  It has great views of some of the rhyolite mountains around it and the hike goes through several different terrains.  Because it was so early in the season (the F road to reach the area just opened a week or two before) there was still a lot of snow on the trail, some of which we definitely needed hiking poles to help us since it was pretty steep and slippery.  Also, as it does in Iceland, it rained on and off, even though the above photo makes that kind of hard to believe.  The weather changes really fast there!

 

First on the trail is crossing a lava field:

 

 

Some gorgeous views all along the way:

 

 

We finally got to the summit, very happy to have made it as we're not very athletic and parts were quite challenging due to the conditions and the weather.  And it finally stopped raining just as we got to the last stretch to the summit!

 

 

When getting through the challenging sections, we told ourselves that if we made the summit, we'd get a reward.... here it is:

 

 

This was maybe the toughest beef jerky I'd ever had in my life.  Trying to rip it into pieces with your teeth is seemingly impossible for all but wolves and raptors.  I found the best way to eat it was to put a small piece in my mouth and allow it to rehydrate a bit before trying to chew it.  However, what it lacked in tenderness, it made up for it with the flavor which was very good.

 

On the way back down, I got a good shot of some of the geothermal vents we passed along the way:

 

 

 

By the time we made it back down to base camp, it was pretty late - although you couldn't tell by looking around.  We realized that we probably wouldn't make it back to Selfoss, even to make the 11PM closing of the shawarma place in time, but luckily, the base camp had a small store with snacks so we decided to eat while driving back.

 

 

This lamb jerky was just as tough as its beef counterpart, but had awesome flavor of thyme and other herbs.

 

Who doesn't love fake potato chips?

 

 

We had exhausted the drinks we had brought with us (about 1.5 liters each) so we got this - a local orange soda.  It's actually quite refreshing and helped to keep me awake on the long drive back!

 

This with the leftover lamb sticks and leftover bread became dinner....

 

We made it back to the hotel right around sundown - around 11:40PM!!!

 

 

It never really got much darker than this the whole time we were there.

 

[heidih]

All I can say again is now!

I see sheepdogs and lamb snacks. Lots of sheep and thus lamb herded there?

[KennethT]

2 minutes ago, heidih said:

All I can say again is now!

I see sheepdogs and lamb snacks. Lots of sheep and thus lamb herded there?

Yes, lots of free roaming sheep everywhere.  And for some reason, they loved the grass right next to the road, even when there's acres and acres of untouched grass all around!!!

[heidih]

Aww maybe the cars whizzing by are like sheep TV. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

[Shelby]

17 hours ago, KennethT said:

you pass their Icelandic horses,

I LOVE these guys.  So sturdy and beautiful.  I wouldn't be able to resist taking a ride...although I'm so short that my legs would stick out on both sides lol.

 

15 hours ago, KennethT said:

You can see how close you can get to these falls.... one slip and that's it!!

That water is amazing.  It makes me thirsty just looking at it.  Crisp.  And that blue hue.

 

15 hours ago, KennethT said:

Kurdo Plate with lamb:

I'm afraid I would have eaten here for every meal lol.  And those fries!  I'd for sure have more than my usual 4.

 

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

Here's a hay field recently baled waiting for pickup:

Interesting --the coverings on the bales.  We have those here but they line them up in a long line and enclose them all together.

 

Those look like giant marshmallows  

 

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

We finally got to the summit, very happy to have made it as we're not very athletic and parts were quite challenging due to the conditions and the weather.  And it finally stopped raining just as we got to the last stretch to the summit!

Not very athletic???  You guys are the epitome of athletic!  All that snorkeling and hiking.  

 

Some of the landscape reminds me of when I lived in Colorado and we'd go above the timberline.  Good memories.

 

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

t never really got much darker than this the whole time we were there.

This never fails to impress me.  Did you guys have trouble sleeping or are the rooms equipped with really good curtains?

 

Thanks so much for this.  REALLY enjoying it all.

[liuzhou]

18 hours ago, KennethT said:

you can even drink any water you find there

 

Growing up in rural Scotland in the 1950s, we drank water from the local streams all the time. Not sure if I would now, though.

[KennethT]

6 minutes ago, Shelby said:

I LOVE these guys.  So sturdy and beautiful.  I wouldn't be able to resist taking a ride...although I'm so short that my legs would stick out on both sides lol.

Supposedly, they're really gentle as well.  We saw a lot of them just lying down in the grass!

 

7 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Not very athletic???  You guys are the epitome of athletic!  All that snorkeling and hiking. 

Ha!  We're a couple of nerds - luckily, you can get good practice walking around in NYC - helps to build endurance, as does walking up 6 flights of stairs every day!  Snorkeling in general is pretty low impact.  My scuba diving instructor in college was proudly overweight and out of shape. He used to say that diving is definitely not a high impact sport!  What's also funny is that we both have a pretty irrational fear of heights but are suckers for really good views.  Usually it's fine, but sometimes the trail goes by a steep drop off and and we basically just keep saying "don't look down; don't look down; don't look down!!!!"  Also, the hiking poles were TOTALLY worth it - they give you a lot more stability and were pretty critical on this hike - especially when going up and down steep sections that were covered in snow.

 

27 minutes ago, Shelby said:

This never fails to impress me.  Did you guys have trouble sleeping or are the rooms equipped with really good curtains?

All of the rooms (4 different hotels) had blackout curtains which worked for better or for worse.  Some of them were more effective than others.  My wife always sleeps with a sleep mask, so she never had any issues, but I'm not a fan of them - but usually we were so tired, I fell asleep instantly anyway whether there was light in the room or not.

[Annie_H]

Gorgeous trip and photos. Iceland has been a favorite trip of co-workers for years. Usually the holiday break. 

Expensive in one sense but the flights I recall being cheap. 

Smart packing research taking hiking poles and proper clothing options. 

Icelanders have a Costco now. Since 2017. For years they would charter a plane to StJohn's Newfoundland once-twice a year. Fill that puppy up with appliances and all one could think of. We were at the car rental counter in StJohn's once and asked for directions to Costco on their hard copy map. (pre cell phone maps or Waze). "You better hurry and zip ahead. The Icelanders just landed!". 

 

 

[KennethT]

14 minutes ago, Annie_H said:

Gorgeous trip and photos. Iceland has been a favorite trip of co-workers for years. Usually the holiday break. 

Expensive in one sense but the flights I recall being cheap. 

Smart packing research taking hiking poles and proper clothing options. 

Icelanders have a Costco now. Since 2017. For years they would charter a plane to StJohn's Newfoundland once-twice a year. Fill that puppy up with appliances and all one could think of. We were at the car rental counter in StJohn's once and asked for directions to Costco on their hard copy map. (pre cell phone maps or Waze). "You better hurry and zip ahead. The Icelanders just landed!". 

 

 

Yes, the flights were cheap, but I don't really remember how much since I bought them around January of 2020 - the trip originally scheduled for mid-July 2020.

[TdeV]

@KennethT, you took all your gear with you, right? It's amazing all those great tools you had.

 

And thank you for this fascinating story.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by TdeV (log)

[Anna N]

@KennethT

Amazing, amazing photographs and videos. Some of the scenery looks almost unreal as if it’s part of a painting. 

[KennethT]

The next day was the day to check out of this hotel and drive to the Hofn area, about 4 hours to the east.  Since it was a driving day, we weren't in a hurry so I was able to get a full photo shoot of the full breakfast spread.

 

3 different varieties of skyr.

 

Cod liver oil - this was available at every hotel we stayed in!

 

Chia seed porridge - my wife became addicted to this and had this just about every day.

 

I also had more bacon, Icelandic pancakes etc. like the day before.

 

Some shots from the road:

 

 

 

 

We even saw some wild horses running along the road... we just barely caught it on video:

 

 

After a couple hours of driving, we stopped in the small town of Vik for some lunch.  We stopped at a cafe called Halldorskaffi:

 

 

 

The menu...  it was an expensive lunch - the current rate of exchange is about 130 kr per US$.  When they say trout, it's what we in the US would call arctic char.

 

 

It was perfectly cooked and delicious - the char we had on this trip was easily the best I've had, probably because this fish was probably caught either the day before or that morning.

 

Icelandic lamb fillet

 

The interior.  The lamb was really tender and flavorful - very lean.  The root vegetables had a strong flavor of black pepper.

 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by KennethT (log)