The Land of Fire and Ice

It’s not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves – William Shakespeare

In the fall of 2013 my sister and I decided to go on a ‘sibling’ trip. This was a sort of annual thing we tried to maintain.

That year Iceland became our choice of destination. Flights were surprisingly cheap from Amsterdam to Reykjavik with Icelandair and on a rainy November morning in November we left to the land of Fire and Ice.

We arrived in the evening in Reykjavik at our apartment ‘Apartment K‘, which is centrally located and has a hip vibe.

We dropped our bags and booked a ‘Northern Lights Tour’ with ‘Super Jeep‘ that same night.

They pick you up at your hotel/apartment in a jeep on steroids and drive you to a central meeting point just outside the city.

Our tour started with a bumpy jeep climb up the hill so be careful with what you eat before the tour. We stopped on the top of the hill to take some awesome shots of Reykjavik by night. From this hill you can spot the Imagine Peace Tower, a memorial for John Lennon from his wife Yoko Ono.

On the hill the drivers evaluate where the weather conditions would be the best to see the Northern Lights. As weather conditions are very unpredictable in Iceland they can never guarantee you will see the lights but you have a pretty fair chance you’ll see one. If not, they will give you a new ticket to ride for the next day.

After driving for a while we were rewarded for our patience. Out of nothing appeared a green light in the sky that soon changed into a curtain in the wind. Definitely one of the most asthonising things I have seen in my young life.

We also got some hot chocolate afterwards to celebrate and made our way back home. I had a great experience with Extreme Iceland and Super Jeep and could recommend them to anyone. This was only our first night here and the trip was already successful !

The second day we visited the city of Reykjavik. It’s a very cozy city with a great vibe. Plenty of little shops, trendy bars and restaurants and cool architecture. Make sure you visit the Harpa (concert hall) and the Hallgrímskirkja (really cool church).

The third and final day we rented a car and drove the ‘Golden Circle‘, a popular route that includes some jaw dropping sights.

One of those is Thingvellir National Park where you can clearly spot the path of the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. A great spot to hike around.

Once we were returning to the car we saw the weather change from blue skies to grey big clouds. We checked the weather with the information desk and they warned us that a storm was coming our way and we had to be careful with driving. Once we started driving the roads quickly turned into a snow road combined with some decent gusts of wind.

We continued our way and drove along Strokkur, an active geyser that erupts every couple minutes.

A little further we arrived at Gulfoss, a majestic waterfall. Due to the winds and the cold we could only endure a couple minutes at the viewpoint before we hurried our asses inside the cafetaria to warm up and have some local lamb soup.

Once the weather cleared up a bit we made our way back direction Reykjavik. Since we were still on time and had the rental car until the end of the day we decided to drive to the Blue Lagoon. On our way the wind and rain picked up again and we arrived to find an empty blue lagoon due to the terrible weather. Although we couldn’t have the blue lagoon experience we still got a good idea of how it looks like.

Hopefully I get the chance to return to this awesome country during summer and explore more of its beauty.