Reading Time: 12 minutes

Leaving the Westfjords area last Friday, we made our way to the southern coast of the country on the far eastern part of the Reykjanes Peninsula. The breakfast buffet at Malarhorn was again excellent and then we stopped for ice cream at Erpsstadir Creamery, which is an ice cream shop right across the road from the farm we stayed at our first two nights in Iceland. The ice cream was excellent – we had chocolate and we were going to have blueberry as well, but it was sold out. We may swing by here again later in our Iceland residency, so we’ll see then. They make their ice cream from the dairy right there at their farm. Good stuff.

Today was an easy drive – left Drangsnes at 10:10 and pulled into Black Beach Guesthouse at 2:10 in the small village of Thorlakshofn. We enjoyed our peanut butter and banana sandwiches and made use of our weights and then went for a four-mile walk on the black sand beach.

After our exercising, I was reading reviews for Heima Bistro, a two-minute walk from our guesthouse, and knew we had to go try it. The reviews were amazing and it lived up to the expectations. We enjoyed everything – fantastic fresh fish n chips, Boli beers, and the couple who own it were so friendly. Just a great experience. After dinner, we watched the finale of this season’s Amazing Race, which was another fun season and headed to bed.

Saturday, we drove the Reykjanes Peninsula clockwise and finished in our new home for a couple of weeks in Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland. We passed remote churches, lava beaches, a geothermal spot filled with steam coming up from beneath the Earth’s surface and the power plant nearby that harnesses the energy to help power the country.

We also stopped at The Bridge Between Two Continents, which crosses the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. The rift runs through Iceland and is slowly growing as the North American plate moves west and the Eurasian plate moves east – they separate about an inch per year.

As we made our way to the north side of the peninsula, we stopped at Iceland’s tallest lighthouse and then grabbed a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine to keep at our apartment at the Vinbudin store in Keflavik. The Vinbudin stores are the only place to buy packed alcohol across the country and they are government-run, similar to state liquor stores in some US states.

We arrived at our apartment in the Kopavogur area of Reykjavik a little before 5. We settled in and assessed our kitchen tools and then went to the Bonus grocery store a mile from the apartment to get groceries for the coming week. Grocery prices seem to be a little higher but not as drastic as fuel, lodging, and restaurants. They offer good variety, and the produce and meat/dairy sections are in separate rooms that are kept at temperatures that definitely warrant putting a jacket on. We wanted something easy for dinner, so we grabbed a couple of frozen pizzas at the grocery store and made those and tried two of the beers we picked up – one was an IPA and one was a wheat beer. It’s only our first night, but we can tell we are going to love this apartment and the area.

Sunday was a day to stay around the apartment. Sandy used the great trail along the water – we are on the north side of another small peninsula – to walk to the Sky Lagoon and back. She also got our laundry done and then we started mapping out our plan of how we want the next couple of weeks to look with the things we want to accomplish while we are in Reykjavik. Our kitchen was missing the pots and pans we needed, so the mom and dad of our Airbnb host stopped by to get them out of storage. Bjarki (our host) is currently in London, which is why he didn’t come himself. His parents were great as we learned about their family and they gave us some ideas on things we might want to do while here. We had salads for lunch and I made shrimp ceviche for dinner. Then we watched a movie called Rams – the original version from 2015 was filmed at a farm in northeast Iceland. We enjoyed watching that and then called it a day.

Monday, I took advantage of the trail along the water and did my four-mile run. It’s so nice running in temperatures in the 50s instead of the 80s. Sandy did her interval workout using the stairs in our apartment building (four floors to go up and down and we are on the fourth floor so we have a nice view looking south over the area). Our friends from Salt Lake City were arriving today and so we were keeping tabs on them.  They arrived on time, but unfortunately Delta decided their luggage needed to stay an extra night in New York. That was a bummer but it did end up arriving on the Delta flight the next morning. They had plans to go to the Sky Lagoon in the early afternoon, so we headed into town and had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at Café Babalu while they were enjoying their hot soaks. This was on the recommendation of Darlene, with whom I play pickleball in Sarasota. Great recommendation – both were excellent.

On our way back, we stopped at Bonus to pick up a couple of items and then we came home and Sandy made a pot of chili. The timing worked out well because by the time we were finished with our running around, Kevin and Jenn were finished at Sky Lagoon and they stopped by to visit with us for a couple of hours and have chili. They were exhausted as would be expected after traveling from Salt Lake overnight. We talked through some plans with them for when they come back to Reykjavik toward the end of their Iceland trip. It was so fun to get to see them here in Iceland and we are thrilled to get to spend more time with them as a part of their trip.

Tuesday was a big sightseeing day. We tackled the Golden Circle, which is Iceland’s biggest tourist excursion and includes the top visited destination in the country. The original plan was to spend the majority of the day with Kevin and Jenn, but their luggage situation changed their timing and so we didn’t get to see the sights with them today. The first stop this morning was at Thingvellir National Park. Upon arrival, we stopped in at the Visitor Center and got to meet and talk with Iceland’s President from 2016 to 2024. Gudni Johannesson is a history professor and following his presidency he returned to teaching at the university and is working in the Visitor Center for the summer. He was very nice and we talked about his family background and connection to the Westfjords since we had been there and we also talked a little about the Icelandic Sagas. His vote for best saga was Njal’s Saga (the one I am reading) and his second choice was Gisla Saga.

The National Park was beautiful. It’s a very significant location as it is where the first Althing was established – many say this was the first form of democracy that has lived forward to the present time. When the Vikings were settling Iceland, this is where they would meet to establish laws for the land and this was back around the year 900. It is also the location of the Prime Minister’s summer residence. Iceland is one of the safest countries in the world and so it may be of little surprise that there isn’t a need for security fences around the residence – just a house out amongst the trails in the park.

Our friend Holly made a recommendation for the Fridheimar restaurant and since we were in the area, we made that our lunch stop. Fridheimar is a family farm that grows 40% of Iceland’s tomatoes. We ate in the wine bar and bistro, which is one of the large greenhouses on the farm. The tomato soup, salad, and the homemade bread were excellent. Good stop for lunch and really interesting to read about and see how the farm is run and how the large greenhouse climates are controlled in such a harsh winter environment. They had huge sunflowers around the property and thousands of bees feasting on them.

The next stop on the Golden Circle route was Geysir. This is where the first geyser was documented and where the word comes from. The original one that was documented is not as impressive as it once was, but there is another one very close to it called Strokkur that erupts every five or ten minutes and can shoot over 100 feet into the air. Old Faithful at Yellowstone is more impressive, but the experience is similar. Of the three main stops on the route, this was the least impressive for us, but still worth the stop because it’s right along the road to the next stop.

Another ten minutes up the road, we came to Gullfoss – this is the top destination in Iceland and it is one of the world’s iconic waterfalls. It lived up to the billing. It’s a series of waterfalls and the way the landscape is carved up in Iceland makes for an interesting view of how the earth is cut and how the Hvita River tumbles over the drops. We learned a lot about Sigridur Tomasdottir, who lived from 1871 to 1957. She was the daughter of the farm owner where Gullfoss is located. It’s an interesting story of how her father was tricked into a deal to sell the land to investors who wanted to harness the power of the falls for hydroelectric power. She (and her father) were opposed to this action because she passionately wanted Gullfoss to stay as nature intends. They lost the battle in court, but Sigridur’s threat to sacrifice herself over the falls if the investors ever started their construction generated enough publicity for the investors to abandon their plans and now we have the falls to enjoy today as nature intends them to be. She is known as Iceland’s first environmentalist. This was a great stop and highly recommended.

As we made our way down to the south coast for dinner, we stopped at Kerid Crater, which is a volcanic crater that is practically a perfect circular caldera and a turquoise lake at the bottom. The crater was created from an explosion more than 6000 years ago. We took the walk around the top of the crater but didn’t go down to the bottom because we had dinner reservations that we needed to make. The only downside of an otherwise beautiful walk was the flies. I don’t know what they were, but there were a lot and they were annoying.

We made it to Fjorubordid for our 6:30 reservation. This is a restaurant in our guidebook that is supposed to have amazing langoustines and soup. Fjorubordid translates to the “by the seashore” and it sits on the beach not too far from where we stayed in Thorlakshofn a few nights ago. I had a ginger ale mixed with orange juice to drink while Sandy had water. We shared the following for dinner: bread with two different spreads, langoustine (tiny lobsters) soup, langoustines that required us to peel them, salad, potatoes, lamb filet, and chocolate cake. The restaurant is on the pricier end of an already expensive country, but every single thing we had was outstanding. I don’t like to put so much work into eating, but the langoustines were worth the effort. It was a fun night and then we were back home in Reykjavik before 9.

Wednesday was our day to return Daisy (our Dacia Sendero rental car). While I did that, Sandy got out for a four-mile run – her first in about two months because she has been trying to get rid of plantar fasciitis. She also got some other work done she wanted to do. I drove the car back to Sixt by the airport and then needed to wait for about an hour for the bus to come to get me back in the direction of home. It dropped me off at the Fjordur stop, which was about 4.5 miles from home, so I did a combination walk/run/intervals home. This area has great biking/jogging/walking trails all over the place, so it was a good experience. We started working on our plans post-Reykjavik and for dinner, we had leftover chili and canned minestrone soup.

Thursday was another home day. Weights, exercises, and stretching for our workouts. Sandy also did intervals on the apartment building stairs. We spent more time on our upcoming plans. Iceland is hard to experience the way we like to do things because our desire for flexibility doesn’t match with the high tourist season here very well. We are having trouble finding lodging, but after today’s work, we did come up with what should be a good plan to get out and see the rest of the country we want to see. We had spaghetti for dinner and then went out for a 20-minute walk along the water. It was a good workday because we found success for our next plans.

And now we wrap up this journal entry with today – Independence Day at home. Today, we finalized lodging to match our plans for the next month or so. We had our cereal and bananas for breakfast and our Greek salads for lunch and then we headed into the center of Reykjavik to follow a recommended walk in our guidebook. We took the bus into town – no problem – we like it when the transit systems just let you pay with your phone or a card right on the bus and you don’t have to navigate finding tickets or handling cash (in fact we did get a small amount of cash out of the ATM to have on hand and have not used any of it as everywhere has accepted credit cards). Coincidentally, an account I follow on X (Guide to Iceland) posted a video this morning of three bakeries she really likes, so we added those to our walking tour. The walk around town was nice – it took us past historic places related to the founding of the city and some of the important government buildings. The Althing (Parliament) is now located here in Reykjavik instead of out in the fields at Thingvellir National Park.

One of the bakeries was sold out of what we wanted to try but the other two were great – one specializes in donuts and one had “worth the calories” cinnamon rolls. The donut place is called Deig and the cinnamon roll place is called Braud and Company. Iceland’s first Starbucks opened yesterday and we walked by it – very long line, of course. We then stopped at Microbar where I enjoyed a dry Irish stout and Sandy enjoyed a mango and passion fruit wheat beer. After our beers, we went to the convenience store a couple of minutes away and grabbed a couple of hot dogs to celebrate Independence Day. Iceland is apparently known to have some of the best hot dogs in the world and yep – they are really good as far as hot dogs go. We had ours with everything on them, which meant fresh onions, crispy onions, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

After the hot dogs, we caught a bus out to the sports club in Kopavogur (our home neighborhood). After not being able to find pickleball in Chile, I was excited to find a group that plays here and excited to add another country to my collection of pickleball experiences. The group started getting together at 7 and we taped the lines down on the indoor tennis courts, setting up two courts. I got to play with a group of around ten people. We had competitive games and it was a fun night. I wish they played more than once a week because it was a lot of fun. Sandy got to have good discussions with a couple of people while I was playing because she still doesn’t have an interest in getting out onto the court. We played until around 10 and then walked about 40 minutes home, still in plenty of daylight.

It’s been a great first week here at our home in Reykjavik.