Travel Glimpses

Although you might imagine Iceland in December to be the wrong time to visit, it can be the best. Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean the temperatures average between thirty in the winter and mid-fifties in the summer. December will give gusty rainy snowy days but not brutally cold. The starkness of the landscape combined with the warmth of the people make it a wonderful destination.

We landed in Reykjavik (you will quickly learn to spell and pronounce it) at six am local time. Since the hotel check in was not until two pm we needed to find something to do. Not too far from the Airport is a geothermal spa called The Blue Lagoon. Although there are spas I liked more it was a very fun first stop. Windy, snowy, rainy and cold the warm water felt great after having been on a plane all night. Had I only worn my stocking cap in the water it would have been much better. My head had ice on it and it was cold. The water was warm but when you find a box where the hot water came from it was super nice.

We stayed in The Central Plaza Hotel which is one of three sister hotels in the central area. More like a European hotel the space was smallish but clean and comfortable. The staff was amazing. Post check-in we wandered the town. There is an outdoor skating rink, some Christmas stalls, shopping and a variety of restaurants. You will find several restaurants offering local lamb stew which is what we had in a bread bowl. Food and wine are on the expensive side. We stuck to things like pizza, hamburgers, lamb stew of course, and amazingly hotdogs from a stand.

Day two brought the Golden Circle. We contemplated taking bus tours but decided we had more flexibility with a car. The first stop was Pingvellir where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet. I am going to leave out the superlative magnificent because everything we saw was. You can stand and have one foot in Eurasia and the other in North America.

The next place we stopped was Geysir. Here you will see bubbling, boiling and exploding geysers. This was interesting didn’t grab our attention.

Near Geysir is the Gullfoss waterfall.

Our last stop on our drive was the Kerio Crater.

It is only daylight from around 10:30 to 3:30 so we didn’t see all that was available along our drive. Something to go back and see. We reached the crater just as it was getting dark so it was timed just right. We spent around six hours on the drive and were ready to get back to the hotel.

We spent day three in the town shopping and people watching. That night at about nine PM we drove forty minutes into the country toward Pingvellir. We were hoping to see the Northern Lights. This is one of the main reasons we went to Iceland. You need a clear night which might be rare at this time of year. We were lucky and saw the lights. Later at night would have been better but we were happy.

Our last day turned out to be the best. we drove one hour from Reykjavik to the Hvammsvik spa. The drive was desolate but so beautiful. It was snowing lightly and made it seem otherworldly, like you were driving into nothingness. The spa was fantastic and the scenery was unbelievable.

There are so many other spas and beautiful country we didn’t see and we will definitely go back.

We flew over Greenland on the way back, then sweet home Chicago. A book we found very helpful was Rick Steves Iceland.