Part 3 of the trip report of our journey to Iceland and Finland [1].
The next day, we departed Vik and headed towards Reykjavik, via a couple of amazing waterfalls and the rift valley.
The first waterfall was probably the most scenic one we visited during our trip. Kvernufoss is just a short 1-mile roundtrip hike from the parking lot, but just like in most American national parks, that’s enough to keep the big crowds away. Hiking into the canyon felt like something from Lord of the Rings, and one of the cool features was that you could hike behind the waterfall. There were also plenty of birds nesting all around us.
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[3]The bigger, much more well-known and -visited waterfall is Skogafoss, less than five minutes away from Kvernufoss. You won’t get any solitude here, but the size of the waterfall still makes a visit worthwhile, especially since you’re already here anyway. If you have the right footwear, you can get very close to the massive waterfall. Again, this is enough of a crowd repellent to get a bit of a distance from the masses.
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[5]After this, we kept on driving for a decent stretch, all the way to Thingvellir National Park. This is the rift valley where the North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates are getting pulled apart. It is one of the few places on earth where you can observe this above water. Most of these rifts are deep in the ocean.
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[7]Our visit to Thingvellir far exceeded our expectations. I had only thought of the geological aspects, which were interesting. But without knowing the Icelandic language or history, I didn’t know anything about the historical significance of the place. It was the site of assembly of the Icelandic chieftains from the year 930 on, and then the place where Iceland’s declaration of independence for signed in 1944, this becoming the founding site of the modern Republic of Iceland.
[8]Our tour guide was amazing. In the beginning, he explained that he works at Thingvellir National Park in the summer, but during rest of the year, he is a professor of history at the University of Reykjavik. We felt very fortunate to have a tour guide with such deep knowledge of Iceland’s history and the national park. Only at the very end, when we were on the Lögberg, the site where the declaration of Icelandic independence was signed in 1944, did he say that there have been seven presidents of Iceland since thefounding of the republic… and he was one of them. Our tour guide was the 6th president of Iceland, Guðni Jóhannesson. And later, he sold us the tickets to enter the museum at the site, which was very well designed and interesting to adults and children, history buffs and the more geologically minded. What an amazing afternoon.
At the end of the day, we drove back to Reykjavik and checked into the last hotel of our Iceland stay. On the next day, we had planned to the Hvammsvik Hot Springs, which had been advertised as a less touristy option than the Blue Lagoon. Unfortunately, we didn’t notice that the minimum age of entry was 10 years, so Kate couldn’t go. I felt horrible for having overlooked this. My mom and I spent a couple of hours there and also took a quick dip in the ocean, but we couldn’t really enjoy it. Also, as we got closer to noon, more and more people showed up, which actually made it feel more crowded than the Blue Lagoon.
[9]Fortunately, Jenny is so resourceful and Kate bounces back quickly from setbacks. They found a place to pull off the road, play by a stream and build an amazing fairy house with a sauna and a hot tub. The most beautiful part of this morning was wholly unplanned.
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[11]We still wanted to give Kate an opportunity to swim, so after lunch, we went to a public pool in Reykjavik, the Laugardalslaug public pool. Honestly, this is what we should have done from the beginning. We have no pictures from the visit, since cameras and phones were prohibited, but this was actually the most Icelandic bathing experience. It was a wonderful public pool complex, with the biggest kids pool I’ve ever seen, and six or seven hot tubs of different temperatures, as well as a cold plunge tub, a sauna, and a steam room.
The experience around it made us wonder “why aren’t all pools run like this?” You took your shoes off before entering the changing rooms, and the place where the lockers were located was the “dry zone”. You changed into your swim suit and took your towel with you, then you walked into the “wet zone,” got naked, showered with soap and shampoo, and then got back into your bathing suit. You left your towel in a rack, and then went to the pool. On the way back, you showered again, and then dried off completely while still in the “wet zone.” As a result, you could change back into your clothes in the “dry zone” without trying to figure out how to keep your socks from getting wet.
I think this was where we saw the most Icelanders, and we could tell that this was perhaps something similar to saunas in Finland, where locals gather after work to relax and have a chat in the hot tub. I think if we were to go to Iceland again, we would visit the Blue Lagoon again, but also make several visits to Icelandic public pools.
We had one last amazing seafood dinner in Reykjavik, which included sampling Hákarl, fermented shark. We were all adventurous enough to try it, including Kate, which made me proud of her, but it wasn’t Jenny’s or Kate’s thing. Mummu and I didn’t mind, but it isn’t something that I would eat a lot of either. It kind of reminded me of a mixture of licorice and a cube of pork fat.
At 4 in the morning, we left our hotel and drove to the airport to fly to Finland. Yes, that last picture is “night time” during the Icelandic summer.
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[13]To be continued…
