Iceland - Walking Tour

Yay! We finally found the group!

As luck would have it two weeks before our trip friends Kimberly and John went to Iceland. Their number one travel tip was to take the free walking tour of Reykjavik through CityWalk. The tour is completely free, but they do encourage donations in any currency. They don't set a dollar amount, but do give guidelines (i.e., a beer costs so much, museum entries cost so much, etc.).

Erik, our guide

The two hour walk started across from the Parliament building in the oldest part of Reykjavik, as marked by the three oldest streest: Adalstraeti (Main Street), Kirkjustraeti (Church Street), and Hafnarstraeti (Harbor Street). No stops for shopping or bathrooms or food along the 2 km route. If there is bad weather, he adjusts the route. Registration takes place online no more than five days before the tour. The tours do fill up quickly, so register in advance.

Parliament Building

Erik taught us about the history of Reykjavik. Iceland became a country on June 17, 1944. They were one of the few places to benefit from World War II as they had an American Air Force Base and were able to become free from Denmark.

Skuli Magnusson (1711-1794) is considered the founder of Reykjavik. The name Reykjavik means "Smokey Mountain" and was settled between 900 and 1200. We hung out near his statue which is on top of the former cemetery. His statue is in front of the 871 +/-2 museum.

871 +/-2 Museum

Why "plus or minus" 2? Because they think Iceland was discovered in 871, plus or minus two years. 

An Elf Rock

From here we walked over to Elf Rock where we learned 50% of Icelanders believe in Elves. Of course no one who told us this information admitted to believing Elves. That is something that is part of the culture of the "older generation." We heard about people who will not move elf rocks without permission from the elves because you don't know what they will do if they are displeased. Inside the elf rocks are palatial homes.

Rocky Village

Past the Elf Rock is the Rocky Village -- a series of historic homes built from timber and covered in corrugated iron. The homes are allowed to be painted in any color, but are not allowed to be changed in any other way. The timber was imported from Denmark in the 1850s because by then all of the trees in Iceland had been cut down. Now they have a law for every one tree that is cut down, two more must be planted. By 1910 they were using concrete to build structures instead of timber.

Geothermal sidewalks

Much of Iceland has natural geothermal heating. Hence no need to plow or salt roads after a snowstorm. Pretty neat trick! Ninety percent of their electricity comes from renewable sources.

The statue is of Ingolfur Arnason, one of the first permanent settlers and the one who named the place "Reykjavik," or Smoke Cover after the hot springs.

Our trip continued past the public high school (built in 1846). He first showed us the school parking lot -- a rare free parking lot in the city. Students leave notes on their cars with their schedules so other students can find them if they have to move their cars. It is the oldest school in the country, but has a really tiny gymnasium making it difficult to play basketball. Because education is free in Iceland, the Icelanders have a very highly educated class of unemployed people. Unemployment, though, at 1.9% is very low. There are 13,000 students at the University of Iceland, out of 332,000 people

High School parking lot

in the country. By far most of them (220,000 people) live in Reykjavik. 20,000 people left during the financial crisis to go abroad. 94% of the population is Icelandic. Six percent are immigrants. They recently took in 35 Syrian refugees. The leaders decided they would rather take in a small number and take really good care of them (giving them housing and jobs) than take in more and not take good care of them. They then moved them to the Northernmost city. Crime is very low. They have about 114 prisoners in the entire country, and only one of the six prisons is guarded. A maximum prison sentence is 16 years for murder, of which they have 1.1 a year.

The statistic Erik is most proud of, though, is that they have 3 Miss Worlds, meaning one out of every 50,000 Icelandic women is a Miss World. They have gorgeous, strong, smart women.

By age 8 students learn English. By 12 they learn Danish. Icelandic is similar to Norwegian. Our guide said by spending only a couple of months in Norway they can also become fluent in Norwegian. 

City Hall beyond the pond that is no longer frozen

The tour was fantastic. Even after reading this lengthy post and seeing my pictures I would highly recommend it. Based on the time of year and the questions asked you'll probably learn different information. Our friends learned in the winter part of this lake is kept unfrozen so the ducks can still swim. A fact that was not shared with us because by the time we went two weeks later, the pond was not frozen.

Iceland - Arrival

I'm sure this trip will end up being a lot of blog posts. As always, I write to help me remember and to more easily share information with friends and family. Japan was a 14 day trip that turned into about 36 blog posts. Cuba was a two day trip that turned into 12 blog posts. Iceland is a four day trip, so it should fall someplace in-between, right?

Booked in October, our trip is falling about six months after the bombing in Paris, and less than a week after the airport bombing in Brussels (yes, I know there have been way too many other bombings, but none others in cities where I have lived, thank goodness). We were a little apprehensive about the flight out of Newark. The apprehension mounted when we could not check into our flight or select seats 12 hours before the flight, so we arrived a good 4 hours early, only to learn the ticket booth does not open until 3 hours before the flight. We were first in line. They were able to quickly seat us together. We breezed through security in less than 10 minutes. We still had over 2 1/2 hours to kill before the flight. So we had dinner. Um....the world's skimpiest dinner (at least until we got to Iceland and had an even skimpier meal).

We flew IcelandAir from Newark to Iceland. WOW is now coming on the scene, but IcelandAir seems to be the biggest airline in town. The other issue with WOW is they only fly out of Baltimore and Boston, adding to the expense and hassles.


The flight started with a rough bout of turbulence -- totally understandable since the forecast called for 50 MPH wind gusts. The flight was fairly uneventful, but Don and I each had a "kicker" behind us and someone tilting their seats back as far as possible in front of us. Made for a LONG 5 hour flight.

IcelandAir includes a suitcase and non-alcoholic drinks in their prices, and use of a blanket and pillow. No food -- even though it is a six hour flight. The seats are tight. The announcements are frequent and in two languages. I felt the pilot woke us up much too early (about 30 minutes before landing). The trip home seemed better because it was not a red eye and the people in front of us did not lean back.

The airport is undergoing major construction. Tourism is a booming business. It is now about 30% of their economy. 

There was not much to do between landing and getting off on the tarmac and getting our luggage. Made me wonder about what we would find for dinner on the way out of there, but was pleasantly surprised by how much they have on the Departures side. Security at the airport was non-existent. We later learned crime is very low in Iceland. They only have about 114 prisoners in the whole country (seems like mostly bankers from the 2008 economic crisis). Customs was simple. We went to the right because we had nothing to declare, others went to the left. We didn't even have a form to fill out.


It was lightly snowing when we landed. The light coating of snow made the countryside look like images of the moon. Unfortunately I think I was too tired to take pictures. It looked completely different on the way back -- like spring was there to stay.

Suitcases in hand we took the FlyBus on Reykjavik Excursions, along with hundreds of other tourists from the airport to the center of the city. It is easy. The big tour bus took us on a 45 minute ride to a bus depot where we switched to a smaller bus that could maneuver the city streets. That was less painful than I ever imagined. The smaller bus ride took about 5 to 10 minutes to Hotel Fron. On the drive we noticed how dark it still was at 7 AM. When the sun came out, the sky looked white. We saw people bicycle commuting on the road parallel to the highway -- yes, in the snow. Don made sure to check out their snow tires.

Our biggest moment of luck came when the hotel said our room was ready. Yes, at 8 AM we could take a nap while other travelers were waiting in the lobby for their rooms to become available. Score!

Our room was a one bedroom apartment complete with a small kitchenette, pull out sofa, and view of a parking lot. We were in a three story blue building behind the main building. Never heard a peep of noise from the street or neighbors. The room darkening curtains would be a necessity in the summer. The microwave was perfect for making tea. The staff was wonderful. They called the tour companies to check on whether or not tours were still happening (especially important with the Northern Lights tours). Polite, but not overly friendly. Just right.

After a two hour nap we were ready to hit the ground running, or at least walking.

Iceland - Food

A number of people have asked me about the food in Iceland. Rather than keep typing the same message, I thought it would be easier if I put all of my thoughts into one big blog post.

Icelanders eat mostly fish and lamb. Fish because it is plentiful and being a coastal country (hardly anyone lives in the center of Iceland), fish is super fresh and easy. Lamb because sheep are easy to raise in the mountains.

Veggies seemed hard to come by. On our Golden Circle Tour we had lunch at Fridheimar greenhouse that grows many of the tomatoes consumed in Iceland (or so it seemed based on the numbers they cited). We had tomato soup and cucumber salsa. They also served Bloody Marys and Virgin Marys, and sold tomato sauces. They also have a lot of root veggies (carrots, potatoes, etc.) but what we think of as veggies are scant.

Milk products are very prevalent. Skyr (sold as Siggis in the states) is a really thick yogurt or a really loose cheese, or just something in-between. Also on the Golden Circle Tour we stopped off at a farm and had ice cream made by these cows.

Our Golden Circle Tour also included either a lamb or a fish dinner at a Farm to Table restaurant. Note just how potatoes and the swoop of beats are the veggies. 

Dessert was a chocolate mousse that was out of this world. The top layer is white chocolate. The middle layer is watermelon (which surprisingly worked), the bottom layer is also chocolate.

The other days we were on our own for meals. There are tons of restaurants in Reykjavik, just not ones we Americans are used to seeing. The economic downturn of 2008 really, really, really hurt the Icelandic economy. That's when Hard Rock Cafe and McDonald's pulled out, and have not yet returned. Starbucks is also not in Iceland. We did see Dunkin Donuts, Dominos, KFC, and several Subways. I saw a sign for Ruby Tuesdays on the outskirts of town, near the Toys R Us. In this way, it reminded me of Havana, Cuba.

Our hotel had a wonderful spread each morning for breakfast. There were 5 different types of sliced bread, ham, cheese, turkey, three types of yogurts, several cereals, hard boiled eggs, teas, coffee, juices, and Icelandic water. We saw a number of people making sandwiches for later.

We had a great lunch at a Thai restaurant. The options were scant (I think there were six), but we each found something we liked. There were a number of really good, and not too overpriced, lunch places near hotel. There were also a number of really expensive dinner restaurants. 

Dinner would have been more comical if we had not been so hungry. We went to an English pub next door because they seemed to have the most reasonably priced Icelandic food. Well we should have put a coin next to our portions for comparison sake. Really we should have gone out to eat at a different restaurant for dinner #2.

Don's lamb inside of a donut ($13)

Ashlye's $12 burger slider with fries

My $14 lamb lollipops. Trust me they look bigger in this picture.

Fortunately there are always the world's best hot dogs. I kid you not. At $3.50 the best deal in town.

Don and I had a terrific lamb stew on the road for about $15. It was at a dive rest stop in Vik. Ashley had a ham sandwich that was not nearly as good.

My most expensive meal was the Catch of the Day at our hotel. We had been wandering the city for at least an hour looking for food that each of us would like. Don found a vegetable lasagna, but I was in the mood for fish. We found a place with a Catch of the Day special that only went until 5 PM. It was a mess. My dinner cost $28. It was worth every penny.

My best airport meal came at the Reykjavik Airport (KEF). I had Teriyaki Salmon with a salad, veggies, and potatoes for $12. It looked so delicious I ate it before taking a picture of it.

Something I failed to remember while in Iceland, and if you go hopefully you will keep in mind is that the price is the final price. Tax was built into the price. There was no expectation of tipping (though I suppose tips are appreciated everywhere). Icelandic water is available in pitchers at every restaurant, hence there is no need to also buy a drink. One night I bought a cup of tea. It was $3.50 and only had a couple of sips in it.

Everyone told us the food was expensive (one friend said expect to pay $50 for breakfast), and certainly you could do the puffin and whale dinner for 6500 ISK ($53), but we did find dinners for under $20 each. It is a matter of what you want to eat, and what you want to drink. Just like in any city.

Iceland - Northern Lights

On the top of Don's wish list for "things to do" in Iceland was seeing the Northern Lights -- a request that is impossible to promise, a lesson we have tried to learn since our second trip to Walt Disney World when we promised our Pooh-loving two-year old daughter we would see Winnie the Pooh and failed despite knowing where Pooh lived, and seeing Pooh's friends at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party. Yet, no Pooh. How could I promise Don we would see something that is completely dependent upon the weather?

I did the best I could. We planned three nights in Iceland. I booked Northern Lights tours for two of the nights, one of the tours offered a second-try option if you don't see them the first time (which could mean staying out really, really late three nights in a row after spending a night on a red eye flight). One of the trips was with a traditional tour bus group that first went to the Golden Circle, the other was with a non-traditional local group called Time Tours, led by Runar.

On the flight over from Newark, Don stayed up all night and could see them from his window seat. This was confirmed the next day when we were talking to the tour guide. He said it was most active between midnight and 3 AM -- after most tour companies had already returned guests back to their hotel rooms. Throughout the trip he spoke with other people who also saw the Northern Lights on the flight over.

Runar, our Icelandic guide, picked us up at 8:45. This was our first night in Iceland following a red eye flight. Runar said he goes out any evening there is a chance of seeing them. He only went out twice between March 8 and 26 (and didn't even see them one night) because the conditions were too awful. The night we went with him almost every other tour group cancelled their tours for the night.

Our van seated 19 it was almost full (I count 15 in the pictures). Runar has your stereotypical Icelandic voice and mannerisms. I felt as if we were with the shop keeper from “Frozen.” He seemed like a big kid excited to be on the journey with us, as opposed to someone just going through the motions for the sake of the tourists.

After picking all of us up he took us to a remote parking lot and stopped the van to talk to us. Yes, a small part of us had some fear – now what? Well, he just wanted to meet all of us and explain he is taking us further than usual because his forecasts (from University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the University of Iceland, and a bunch of other mobile sites) indicate we have a 3 (on a scale of 0-9) for seeing the Northern Lights. It was a bit confusing because the scale does not indicate our chances of seeing the Northern Lights, but if we see them what it will look like. A 1 is even further north than Iceland (around the North Pole) and will be hard to see in Iceland. On the other end, a 9 is so far south we would not see it in Iceland, but people in Texas might see it. A high 2 or 3 is ideal for seeing it in Iceland, and for photographing it.

You need a clear night, or at least one with only sporadic clouds. As it had snowed that morning in Rejkavic, we had an overcast sky, hence the 100 km (60 miles) drive north to start our adventures away from the clouds. About 45 minutes around the town of Borgarnes he said he would stop for a bathroom break – 9:30 at night, but he saw the lights and we went to chase them instead.

We took Highway 1  to head north quickly, but then went on local roads (there are not many). Surprisingly on these local roads we passed only a handful of vehicles. We took a long tunnel (several miles long), which is on Iceland’s only toll road. The toll road was built about 15 years ago and is supposed to stop being a toll road in another 5. We’ll see what happens. There is talk of building another tunnel to help ease "traffic." 

We stopped for 40 minutes. Our guide explained what we were seeing, but said it was really too light to see anything. Yes, at the end of March in Iceland at 10 PM there is still some light in the sky. He took pictures of each of us in front of the Northern Lights, as well as pictures of the Northern  Lights which he will share with us. He tried to help each of us change the settings on our cameras to take pictures. I have a DSLM (as opposed to a DSLR), which means it is mirrorless and a lot lighter than a DSLR, but I can’t go totally manual with my shooting. This is the first time I wish I really could. I tried to give it up and just enjoy the moment. He sent us copies of the fabulous pictures he was taking. 

Back in the van to warm up. It didn’t seem too cold on the first stop – it was about 30 degrees out and did not seem windy (9 MPH winds), with the windchill it was 21.5 degrees. After being out in it for 40 minutes were cold. We drove for 10 minutes and stopped to see it again. Another 35-40 minutes out of the van standing in the middle of a quiet street. Yes, in the middle of the street. We saw about 3 cars the whole time we were out.

The third time out that evening was amazing – it was a “4,” which meant the lights were also dancing and some red and blues were also visible in addition to the traditional greens. We were ready to go home with a smile at this point – it was around 11:30 PM and we were an hour from the hotel (though we ended up not going nearly as far north as he thought we should go).

We also saw more stars than we will ever see on a night in New Jersey. Hard not to be inspired as you look up and count the stars, and fail to count them all. Gives real meaning to God's promise to Abraham to have more descendants than stars in the sky (Genesis 24:6, and other places).

Runar was as excited as a kid on Christmas. Every time he saw a hint of activity he stopped the van and encouraged us all to get out. By the 5^th time, though, most of us were not getting out of the van. Our toes had searing pain in them – this was with wearing two pairs of socks (including wool ones) and snow boots. I felt like the Pillsbury Doughboy (or the Michelin Man) wearing a t-shirt, long sleeved shirt, heavy sweater, heavy winter coat, ear muffs, balaclava, gloves (which came off to take pictures), and running wind pants, but wish I had also worn tights and every other item of clothing I owned. My hands could not stop shaking. Once the cold finds a crack in those layers and gets in, it doesn't leave willingly.

Runar educated us the entire ride. On the ride back (we finally stopped for that bathroom break around 1 AM) he told us about folklore related to the Northern Lights. Cultures used to see them (such as Vikings and Eskimos) thought of them as favorable. Cultures further south were frightened by them. The Inuit felt after a hunt, they were the animal spirits going up to heaven. The Vikings felt they were their gods walking around.

The lights really have to do with a  combination of solar flare ups and energized oxygen (green), nitrogen (red), and nitrous oxygen (blue) interacting with our atmosphere. The Northern Lights occur 60 miles above us – where it is very, very cold always, which is why it doesn’t have to be cold were we see them, it just is because it has to be dark, which only happens in winter.

The Northern Lights do not look nearly this vibrant to the naked eye, but the camera lens (using the right settings) can capture it in ways that is not possible to the eye. It is still amazing, but not as stunning as anticipated. The colors really come out in the photographs, but not when you are looking at them. He took seemingly 100 pictures using a low F-stop, a high shutter speed (1600), manual focus, and holding still for 25 seconds to really let in the light. A tripod is needed to make this possible. He then used a light around us to capture us with the Northern Lights behind us.

Don described what we saw as a nighttime rainbow of green. The rainbow shape is the earth's curve. It extended across the entire vast sky. The lights also look like they are in curtains, arches, and beam shapes. At times they seem to dance. They could appear for a couple of moments  and the be done for the night, or keep going like they did on our night. 

We went out the following night at the end of our Golden Circle day trip. We were lucky to catch them a second night. What was truly stunning was that they looked different the second time. One of the guys on our trip took pictures. If he lets me share them with you, I'll post them here. That night they seemed more vertical, less horizontal. Still stunning. We stopped twice. The first time we just parked the van and waited for it to get dark enough. They were good, but not like the first night. Then we hopped in the car. At one point our guide (Max that night) found a safe spot to park and we all got out again. That time they were amazing. The whole sky was green -- some saw blue or purple, but I didn't. The lights seemed to stretch up forever. I truly felt like a tiny speck in the universe in the midst of God's glory.

Purely for comparison sake, these are our best pictures. The first is showing there is still light in the sky "blue dark" at 10PM.

On our third night we didn't have plans to see the lights. Even if we did, most tour companies cancelled their tours because it was flurrying again, which meant the sky was covered in clouds (simple snow does not slow down Iceland).

Having a successful sighting of the Northern Lights means future trips up North will take place during the warm months (advice our friend Kevin once gave us, and obviously we did not heed it this time).

I'll break up the rest of the trip into smaller posts. Keep in mind, I blog to help me remember about what is happening in our lives. The wording could always be improved upon, I do write too much, and I am always happy to let others share our experiences in this way.