ICELAND = 5 Days / 4 Nights

DAY ONE – We walked around town a bit and saw some sights. Ate a quick dinner then hit the sack. The hotel (Hótel Klettur) was nice enough, but our room was quite small.

The Sun Voyager by Jón Gunnar in 1990

Hallgrímssafnuður belongs to the Evangelical-Lutheran national church and about 7000 people live in the church's parish area. 

DAY TWO – our hotel this time (Hótel Kverna) was an old boarding school that had been remodeled into a hostel. Two floors each with 16 rooms and only one bathroom per floor. Still, the common area provided us a place to write in our journals and plan out our day.

Þingvellir nationalpark was established 1930. Today it is one of the most visited sites in Iceland. Þingvellir was accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage site 2004 for its cultural value to the world.

Strokkur (The Churn), which erupts at regular intervals every 10 minutes or so, reaching as high as 30 meters.

The Skógafosswaterfall is one of the largest in Iceland with a drop of almost 200 feet.

DAY THREE – our next hotel (Hótel Skógafoss) was just down the street from our last one, but at least this time we had our own bathroom!

Dverghamrar (Dwarf Rocks) is a peculiar and beautiful columnar basalt formation.

The FjaðrárgljúfurCanyon Hike is short and easy and follows the canyon for about a mile before turning back around. This slightly off-the-beaten-path stop has several viewing platforms to snap some photos.

Skaftárstofa is the Vatnajökull National Park visitors center, located near Kirkjubæjarklaustur at Sönghóll by road number 1. It also serves as an information center for the municipality of Skaftárhreppur.

The idea behind the extraordinary Lava Show is to recreate a volcanic eruption by superheating real lava up to a molten state of 1100°C (2000°F) and then pour it into a showroom full of people.

DAY FOUR – we ended our trip back at the same hotel we started at (Hótel Klettur), but this time they put us on the 8^th floor with a bigger room.

Vik í Myrdal, or just Vik, is the southernmost village on the Icelandic mainland, with a population of around 650 residents.

Reynisfjara is a world-famous black-sand beach found on the South Coast of Iceland, just beside Vik í Myrdal.

Eimverk is a family operated distillery founded in 2009 with the mission to make premium Icelandic liquors strictly from local ingredients. They produce three spirits: Flóki, a single malt whisky; Vor, a pot distilled gin; and Víti, their signature version of Icelandic Brennivín.

DAY FIVE – our last day gave us just enough time to check out the lighthouse before we had to be at the ferry terminal to begin our second half of the trip.

The first lighthousein Iceland was built on Valahnúkur in Reykjanes in the year 1878. By 1905 earthquakes and surf had damaged Valahnúkur so much that there was the risk of the lighthouse falling into the sea. A new lighthouse was therefore built in 1907-1908 on Bæjarfell hill in Reykjanes and the old one was demolished with an explosion on April 16^th, 1908.  The light-signal height is 69 meters above sea-level, but the actual height of the lighthouse is 26 meters.