We were pretty tired after our late night at Latrabjarg Cliffs the previous night, so everyone slept in. I got up a little earlier than everyone else and went outside to take a few pictures around the hotel, Hotel Flokalundur. This is the view from the hotel parking lot.
The same view from our hotel room — you can see the trees were just budding out. The date was May 27th!
While I was standing outside taking pictures, this big grader came along to grade the gravel road that we had taken to Dynjandi Falls the previous day. It made me wonder how often they grade the roads. Based on our experience, it was certainly needed.
We had a light breakfast of cereal because we were late for breakfast — technically arriving at the end of their 10 a.m. serving time. I’m assuming any hot items had been put away. We left the hotel around 11 a.m. and the weather started out drizzly. We had to drive through a few higher passes and the drizzle turned to snow for a little bit. Luckily, the roads were paved in the area where we hit snow.
Back down at sea level and traveling along the Fjords, we stopped to take pictures now and then.
Around 1:30, the kids were hungry since they hadn’t had any breakfast, so we stopped at a restaurant at Bjarkalundur. We only saw one place to stop — a combination hotel, restaurant, gas station, and gift shop. We were the only ones in the restaurant, so we had the undivided attention of two waiters who were very friendly. We had soup and hamburgers and fries and the food was very good. The waiters were even more awesome and we hung around for awhile pelting one of the waiters with questions. It was so interesting to talk to him — he was a very nice student from Reykjavik who had come north for a job during the tourist season. He told us lots of interesting things about Iceland and we had a great time. One of my favorite things about travel is to talk to “the locals” — you learn so much about the country you are visiting. Bjarkalundur is a highly recommended stop!
We continued our drive south on Hwy 60 to Hwy 1. Our destination was Selfoss, but I knew we’d have some extra time that afternoon, so we decided to detour through Thingvellir National Park. Ideally, you would visit Thingvellir National Park on the same day that you visit GullFoss and Geysir, but we didn’t have time for all three and saved Gullfoss and Geysir for later in the trip. Our method was somewhat inefficient time-wise, but it worked for us. Somewhere along Hwy 1, we turned off to take gravel roads over to Hwy 52 which would take us into the north end of Thingvellir. Along the gravel roads, we had our first encounter with Icelandic horses. They’re so beautiful and friendly.
Once we were on Hwy 52, the scenery quickly changed from farmland to hmmm, not sure what you would call it — volcano land? Lava, lava everywhere and pretty desolate.
Our stop at Thingvellir National Park was cold and VERY windy but we bundled up and wandered around. Thingvellir is a protected national park and is the site of Iceland’s ancient legal and judicial assembly. In addition, this is where the European and North American tectonic plates are tearing apart and it’s one of only two places where you can see a tectonic rift above ground. The church at Thingvellir was the first in Iceland to be consecrated, around the year 1000 a.d. This Pingvallakirkja church dates from 1859.
After walking around the little church (sadly, we weren’t able to go inside), we walked up the path to a lookout point and an education center (also closed — we were either just after closing time, or they weren’t open yet for tourist season). The look out point was fabulous and you could see for many miles in three directions. To the north lies the volcano Skjaldbreidur whose lavas created Thingvellir.
And to the south, the geothermally active Hengill.
To the east, we could look down upon the Thingvallabaer farmhouse and the Pingvallakirkja church.
Seeing the jagged earth was really interesting — I would love to see the “great crack” from the air.
On the way out, we stopped to admire the waterfall and the drowning pool.
After we left Thingvellir, we drove for about an hour along Hwy 36 to get to Selfoss. Along the way, we stopped to snap a picture of one of the only sod-topped houses that we saw. I know they are all over Iceland, but sadly, we didn’t have time to go and see very many of them.
We arrived at Hotel Selfoss around 8 p.m. Hotel Selfoss is clean and modern and highly recommended, although, here we had our first encounter with the famous sulfur smelling water. We couldn’t decide where to have dinner, so we drove around the town a little bit. We couldn’t really find anything other than a KFC, so we returned to the hotel for dinner and we were very happy that we did. Dinner was delicious! I had seafood but the rest of the family had a chicken dish that was one of their favorite meals on the trip. In addition to a great meal, you get a beautiful view of the Olfusa river.
