Fire and Ice
We wanted to explore Reykjavik but also learned how outrageously expensive it was long before we booked our flights here. We decided two nights would be plenty before our cruise departed. Good choice. Because it was outrageously expensive! We love to walk and explore on foot, which we did. We found a lovely little Airbnb unit in the downtown core and covered a lot of ground in our short time here!
We were lucky to hit Iceland at a good time. Our full day in Iceland happened to be the first day it didn’t rain and had sunny skies in two weeks. Apparently, it is cold and rainy, and sometimes snowy, for most of the summer. Our arrival and departure days definitely were cool and rainy!
We walked all over the usual touristy spots. We stopped and tried some street food, including hot dogs. I kept hearing about how you HAVE to try hot dogs in Iceland. I’m not sure what all the fuss is about, they just tasted like hot dogs to me. We found a cute little café that we stopped in for a coffee date. There’s a lovely man who brings free cookies in every day for the café to hand out. I thought that was so kind, and the girls loved the cookies!
We browsed some shops, found our traditional magnet keepsake, and taste-tested a ton of different Icelandic salts. There are so many amazing ones! Icelandic salt was the other thing I kept hearing you needed to try and at least this one ended up living up to expectations! After tasting them all at the tourist spot, I went to the grocery store to buy them to avoid paying tourist prices. We ended up buying a flaky sea salt and a lava salt (sea salt with activated charcoal) to bring home.
Experiences mean everything to us. We decided we were going to splurge on some while here, despite how expensive everything is. We decided the Lava Show sounded the most unique and intriguing. We considered doing some others, but none really grabbed our attention that much. On our way to the Lava Show, we stopped and bought the girls a fancy ice cream sundae treat from a specialty ice cream store.
The Lava Show was excellent! It was a really good choice. We watched a short video about the history of Iceland in general and the history of volcanic activity, including all the big eruptions. After the video, we learned a little more about lava and volcanoes from a lovely and informative woman who moved to Iceland from the US for her master’s degree. I can’t recall her exact program, but it was something like a volcanologist and involved volcanoes, so she was extremely knowledgeable. We saw the man who melts down the lava and the special suit he needs to wear and learned about the special oven they had built in the US and shipped to Iceland to be able to get hot enough to melt the lava down for each show.
Then came the fun part… they poured lava down the chute into the room. We were sitting about ten feet away in the front row. We could definitely feel the heat! It was amazing to see it pouring down through the channel and into a pool at the bottom. The woman had put some ice down on a part of the chute so we could see what happens when it goes over ice. The answer is that it bubbles and has mini explosions! We learned about how there are many volcanoes in Iceland covered in snow/ice and that when these erupt the result if a cloud of ash and dust that is quite an annoyance. In 2010 there was a huge eruption that brought air travel in most of Europe to a standstill due to this phenomenon. But not Iceland… Keflavik Airport (the main airport in Iceland outside Reykjavik) was not affected!
She used a poker to manipulate it, lift it, swirl it, twirl it, break it open, and so much more. It was fascinating to see how quickly the outside layer cooled and became malleable, while inside the core was still molten. We learned that it can take decades or even over a century for lava to completely cool, as the outer layer becomes an insulator of the lava and keeps it warm inside the core. But, once it does cool, even though it looks strong and beautiful, it is extremely fragile. She moulded some lava into the shape of an arch. Once it was cool enough, she tapped it lightly with her stick and it shattered like glass into so many pieces.
The entire show was so fascinating from beginning to end, and we felt like we learned so much. The girls were enthralled and asked some really interesting and thoughtful questions at the end. This was definitely worth the money to go to and we are so grateful we did!
That night, we decided to go and splurge on a nicer dinner out, as it would be our final night before getting on the cruise ship and heading back to Canada. A farewell dinner of sorts. It was a lovely dinner, and we all enjoyed our time and food immensely. Though Jon got the surf and turf and unfortunately ended up seriously regretting his decision in the middle of the night!
The next morning, Katia and I went out for a little mommy-daughter time back to the café from the day before to have a hot drink and play some chess together. We also picked up the salt we wanted to bring home and just generally walked and got some steps in. Jon was feeling a little better when we got home but was still quite ill with his food poisoning. We hopped a cab to the cruise port rather than walking, as we had intended. It was about an hour’s walk, so there’s no way the poor guy could have made it.
Luckily, we cabbed because the port was chaos! I think the main reason was due to the annoying bureaucracy from Canada, as every passenger needed to fill out two customs cards for Canada before being allowed to get on board, even if they had no intention of getting off the ship. It meant we were in line for over two hours until we got on board the ship.
The next day, we stopped at our first port of call, Isafjordur. Isafjordur was supposed to be our third port, but the cruise ship was monitoring an incoming hurricane and modified the port schedule accordingly. Our day in Isafjordur started early. We got off the ship and spent our time hiking, seeing a waterfall, and exploring the little town a bit. There wasn’t much in the little town to see, but there was a small park where the girls enjoyed jumping on a bouncy pillow and ziplining! There was also a golf club outside town near the waterfall we hiked to, which was perfect to allow us a brief stop to warm up with some tea and have a brief bathroom break. Overall, this port was ok. The hiking trail was average and the waterfall was nice but not as impressive as some we have seen. It was a nice spot to stop for a few hours, but not a place I’d like to visit for longer.
Later that night, we learned that would be our only stop in Iceland. The hurricane was coming in and was looking to be fierce. The captain decided to leave Iceland early to get out of its path. While we were disappointed, we were also not excited to experience hurricane weather again on a cruise ship! Been there, done that in 2014 near Norway. Never want to experience that again! We had especially been looking forward to one port in particular, Arkueyri, where our cab driver in Reykjavik was from. He’d given us tons of local tips and we were particularly looking forward to the Forest Lagoon. It also just sounded like a really nice town to visit. We didn’t know much about the other town, Djupivogur, which sounded a bit more remote like Isafjordur. So that was a little less disappointing.
All in all, we felt like Iceland was overrated. It should have been appealing to us as people who love to get outside and hike and enjoy nature. I’ve heard a lot about the natural and rustic beauty of the island. And I’m sure for some people it is amazing. But we also appreciate nicer weather. We don’t like hiking in hot weather, so we were ok with cooler weather. But Iceland was wet and rainy a lot, a bit too cold for our liking (even at the end of July), and the hiking trails we did experience were average at best. I’m sure we missed the best hiking areas, but we doubt we will ever return to Iceland again to try these trails. But I suppose we can say it’s one place on our bucket list we have gotten to see and can tick off now.