Iceland, Part 2: Waterfalls, Hot Springs and Glacier Lagoons

The best part of writing these Iceland posts is it lets me hold onto that wonderful vacation feeling just a little bit longer as I look through the hundreds of photos we took. And I'm very excited to share the last three days of our trip! It's the part where we had to put on our warmest gear (think heat tech base layers, waterproof insulated pants, scarves, hats, the works!) to venture out to see glaciers lagoons and waterfalls and much later, Icelandic horses!

Day 3

Venturing outside Reykjavik is an absolute must if you're in Iceland. But since neither of us want to drive while traveling we relied on two awesome tours to take us around (which I'd recommend anyway; it's so convenient). The first one we did was the Golden Circle Classic Day Trip. Our first stop was Thingvellir, a historic site and national park. From there we went to see the Gullfoss waterfall, which is located in a canyon and an absolute must-see. Totally worth it to nearly freeze my fingers off capturing this sight on camera. (I learned my lesson and started wearing my the gloves I bought after that!)

Then, as a surprise, our guide took us to more secluded waterfall called Faxi. For a solid 10 minutes, our two tour buses had it all to ourselves which was awesome. It was amazing to be able to take in the view without all the hustle and bustle of other tourists.

After that we made our way to see the Geysir and Strokkur hot springs (we got to see the latter erupt!) and Skálholt church.

Since this was a shorter day trip, we were back in the city by 6pm and had the most delicious dinner at Kol Restaurant, which Alexa will give you much more details and pictures on in a later post.

Day 4

This is the day we went on the South Coast and Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon Day Tour, which was 14 hours long but never once felt like it. This tour was even more breathtaking! Honestly, if you only do one tour during your entire trip, this is the one to do.

Our first stop was the Skogafoss waterfall and Skaftafell National Park.

Then it was off to the two glacier lagoons which was my favorite part! The first one we saw was Fjallsárlón, which is smaller, super windy and had dozens of iceberg floating and along the shore.

But it was Jokulsarlon that I found to be the most incredible. It's Iceland's largest glacier lagoon and the bright blue waters paired with the ice, distant mountains, sun and even bluer skies is just a sight to behold. It was unreal.

Then it was time to start heading back to the city. We stopped by one other waterfall on the way back but it was too dark to get a good picture. We got dinner (side note: the rest stops in Iceland have really good food!) and we got a slightly better glimpse of the Northern Lights! Still not the full on green, dancing lights we wanted to see but enough to somewhat capture it on our phones.