Iceland’s Golden Circle

Leaving Vik after a couple of days we made our way to one of Iceland’s most famous waterfalls, Skogafoss.

The waterfall is spectacular. Just to the right of it is a staircase of 527 steps that take you to the top of the falls. While the view from the top isn’t all that, just beyond the overlook is the start of the Waterfall Way, a 10-mile out-and-back hike that includes 26 additional falls that are said to be quite beautiful.

Skogafoss is 197 feet tall and 82 feet wide. You can walk right up to it, but you’d better have on lots of rain gear, the spray is impressive.
To the right of the waterfall there are 527 steps leading to the beginning of the Waterfall Way hike. In our case, due to weather, we hiked up there and got a pretty good view of the very busy parking lot and surrounding farms, and the waterfall, of course, though it is not as good of a view as below.
You can see how crappy the weather was the day we were at Skogafoss. Note all the potholes in the parking lot. That didn’t stop folks from coming.
Icelandic sheep are a pure breed brought over to Iceland from Norway in the 9th century. Like horses, no other sheep can be imported into Iceland. There are about 800,000 Northern European short-tailed sheep in Iceland, mostly roaming free until the “Rettir”, or roundup, is done each year in September.
Top of the falls just before the drop.

We had planned to make the hike but the weather didn’t cooperate, and there is nothing fun about hiking in cold, wet and windy weather. We were kind of bummed about missing the hike, but there was nothing we could do to change our circumstances.

We stopped again at another waterfall, this one tumbles in such a way that it is possible to walk behind it. While that might sound fun, the jam-packed parking lot and plethora of tour buses made us think twice about visiting. Instead, we drove on through the parking lot and made our way to Selfoss, a town situated just at the entrance of the Golden Circle.

This is the Seljalandsfoss, the waterfall you can walk behind. We drove up, Steven snapped the photo and we drove away. We were not really interested in getting drenched, but some people love it and that’s what they come here to do!

The Golden Circle is a popular loop drive that encompasses several interesting sights. It is about 190km round trip from Reykjavik, which makes it a popular day tour for many visitors. It is a worthy place to visit, but it is so heavily marketed as a great day trip, everyone who arrives in Iceland seems to head that way. In order to get ahead of the tour buses, we started early, drove it anti-clockwise, and spent two days visiting instead of one. That turned out to be a great plan!

The morning we got up early we decided to stop at a cafe in a gas station and have breakfast. Two of these simple egg and bacon on toast cost us $27. We have come to the conclusion that Steven must have gotten charged for each ingredient separately because this was not actually on the menu. Or he just got ripped off, or both. In any case, we overpaid for this.

Kerid Crater

Burfell volcano rises 2200 feet and was quite impressive in the early morning as we were just beginning our drive on the Golden Circle. Burfell got its shape due to the glacial cap on top during eruption. Ice cools lava so fast that it doesn’t flow very far and instead piles up and creates what is known as a table mountain.
Kerid crater was formed by a cone volcano that erupted, emptied its magma chamber and then collapsed in on itself. It was a one and done eruption. The lake is actually the same level as groundwater and is not filled further by rainfall. It is on private land, but right near the road and is an easy stop.
It is easy to walk around the entire crater, takes about 20 minutes. Steven did not go all the way around because we had to get back on the road and stay ahead of the tour buses (plus, it was freezing).
We passed by these greenhouses which are pretty famous in Iceland. Here you will find the restaurant Fridheimar, which serves all things tomatoes grown right there on the farm. It only opens for lunch which is served right inside the greenhouse. It is a very popular tourist destination and because we didn’t plan ahead, we were unable to get a reservation.


Gullfoss Waterfall

My gosh it was cold on the day we visited Gulfoss waterfall! But our early morning swing around the Golden Circle paid off as there were just a handful of visitors there when we arrived.
Gulfoss falls in two stages, then plunges deep into a gorge. Visitors are able to walk right out to it with minimal spray, and get a good look.
You only need to look at the two people on the ledge to the left in the photo to see just how huge Gulfoss really is. New infrastructure has made it easy to see the falls from multiple positions. At the top, near the parking lot where you think would be a good place to build an informational visitors center, you will find a high end gift and clothing shop. One or two companies seem to have a lock on all the stores, so if you forget to buy something in one, you will soon come across one or two more, or ten, just like it.


Geysir Geothermal Area

This is Strokkur, Iceland’s answer to Old Faithful in that it goes off predictably about every eight minutes. That is the only way it resembles Old Faithful. Otherwise it is kind of puny, one pfffft and it is done. You have to wait another 8 minutes to see it again. I will go so far as to say that, for me, the Geysir Geothermal area was a disappointment. It does, however, have a good PR agent.
Most of this is steam, the heated water is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it event.
I suppose this landscape is interesting to anyone who has not been to Yellowstone, but really it pales in comparison. I know that the greater context is different and I did try to keep that in mind.


Thingvellir National Park (UNESCO)

Does it look to you like this horse has a hairdresser? The hair is just so perfect and she looks like she knows she is a good-looking horse!
We spent a couple of hours driving across the plains of the Thingvellir National Park. The park is a UNESCO Heritage Site for a couple of reasons. First, it is a huge part of Iceland’s governance history, where for centuries annual assemblies took place, laws were made and people were governed. Thousands of people, not just lawmakers, would make the pilgrimage to this land and participate in the process. This went on for over 800 years, until 1798. (After that, I guess they moved inside where it was warm and actually wrote down all their laws. Before, some poor guy had to recite them all by heart.)
We stayed overnight in the park and what a view we had!
Our next day on the Golden Circle dawned bright and sunny, a big difference to the day before! We parked Bijou and went for a hike to “Law Rock”, where that same guy had to recite the laws to the people from memory, and also a waterfall.
It may look like we had the place to ourselves in the photos, but this is what it really looked like. We did not get ahead of the buses on this day, plus it was gorgeous weather so it was busy. Unfortunately the information center had already closed for the season, but the gift store(s) were open!!
This was a popular spot overlooking the landscape of the park, and Silfra.


Silfra Fissure

We made our way out to Silfra, which is the second reason the park is a UNESCO site and popular with tourists. This is the place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates have pulled apart and in one of the only places in the world where you can actually see where the separation is happening. Because the rift has filled with water, it has become a must-do in Iceland to scuba-dive or snorkel at Silfra. (That got a hearty “not in a million years!” from us, but other people seemed to enjoy it).

Bijou is parked down there next to the continental rift. It continues to pull apart at a rate of about 19mm per year.
Overlooking Silfra and the national park on a beautiful (and somewhat warm!) sunny day.
Entering the crystal clear waters at Silfra. That water is ice cold and there is no material on earth that would keep me warm.

We had come to Iceland planning to drive the entire Ring Road, but after keeping an eye on the weather up north, we had finally come to the conclusion that it really wasn’t going to be much fun to take Bijou into freezing temperatures, not to mention drive on potentially icy roads. Knowing that we had passed up places we would have liked to have spent more time, we made the decision to scrap the Ring Road in favor of a few days off the Ring Road and a return along the south and east coasts.

Happy with our decision, we skipped right by Reykjavik and made our way across some of the most stunning landscape in Iceland, the Snaefellsnes peninsula. More on that next time.

And finally, a creative contribution from Steven. He has always been interested in pinhole photography which, in a nutshell, is shooting without a traditional lens. Just a tiny hole pierced in a plastic bodycap. The resulting images have a ghost-like vintage look. While at Skogafoss, he captured this image of some newlyweds who were doing a photo shoot.


Up next: Snaefellsnes peninsula and Reykjavik


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8 Comments

    1. 2chouters

      Thank you, Rita! Iceland has an abundance of waterfalls and other beautiful landscapes. I am really much more interested in the geology of it all rather than the “must-do” experiences, and there is a lot of that to see as well. Iceland is the gift that keeps on giving around every bend!

      1. Doris Bona

        Hi there! I see in your blog on Albania you went to a dentist in Berat that Kevin & Ruth recommended. Could you please send me his contact info? Kevin lost his info when he switched over to his new phone. I’ve tried googling him but can’t seem to find him. Dr. Ervis Qalliu.
        Sure would appreciate it as we hope to be there next week.

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