Sorry, haven't blogged in a while! Have been caught up with real life. But going to use my train commute time to catch up on my blogging in the next few days. So first of all....Iceland!
Hayley and I took a 4 day trip to Reykjavik from the 15-19 November. Iceland is an absolutely incredible country and I would recommend it to anyone...most beautiful scenery and so different to anything I have ever seen, ever.
We flew in on Thursday afternoon and got a transfer straight to our hotel. Because Iceland is so far North there isn't a lot of sunshine in November, so by the time we got to the hotel around 4:30pm it was already dark. We checked in, then decided to wander up to the city centre to check out shops and restaurants. For a capital city, Reykjavik is very small and quaint but there were a few places open and a few people out and about. Whilst we were walking along the main street an amazing thing happened...it started hailing...and then the hail turned into sleet, and after about 10 mins of that it turned into fluffy snow!! I was so happy :) My first real snow experience beside the Swiss Alps (where I walked out at the top of a mountain into a blizzard for about 10 seconds). We had a delicious dinner at a restaurant across from the hotel, fish and couscous.
On the Friday, we went to the Blue Lagoon. No words can describe how beautiful it was. The Blue Lagoon is a natural hot spa, heated by volcanic hot springs. Walking up to the lagoon it is surrounded by black volcanic rocks which were all covered in snow.
We walked into the changing area, hired some robes, threw on our bikinis (so weird wearing bathers when it was snowing!) and walked out to the lagoon. It was big, blue, icy, warm and all around amazing. There wasn't much time to stand and admire the view as our toes would have frozen off so we dropped the robes and quickly got into the lagoon. The temperature was just perfect. There are springs where the water comes out at 100 degrees so it was very well naturally heated.
The lagoon has a bar, sauna, water fall, and is lined by natural silica which you can use as a face mask. We spend half the day soaking up the goodness and enjoying the face masks and bar. We tried to book in some massages to treat ourselves too but they were all booked out.
After the lagoon we headed back to Reykjavik and went out for dinner. We chose a delicious restaurant that Hayley had researched (can't remember the name...something Grill). Enjoyed a marmalade cocktail first then when our table was ready had a delicious dinner. I had the lamb and it was perfect. All the meat in Iceland is produced locally, they don't import anything so it was all very fresh.
That night we hopped on a bus in the hope of seeing the Northern Lights. We drove for about an hour, sat in the middle of Iceland in the freezing (freezing freezing) cold at midnight, only to find it was too cloudy to see anything, so headed back to our hotel. It was a shame, but just means I will have to come back or go somewhere else to see them!
On Saturday we had our adventure day. We did an all day tour which took us to see the Gulfoss Waterfall, the Geysir water spouts, and to a glacier in the mountains for Snowmobiling! It was such a fantastic day. The guide took us to amazing places and told us so much history about Iceland. But definitely the best part was the snowmobiling.
We took a hardcore bus thing with huge wheels right to the top of a glacier, where everywhere you looked it was completing white and ice. It was so damn cold! We got suited up in these incredible space like suits, which blocked all the wind and most of the cold. Then headed out on the snowmobiles. It was 2 to a vehicle so Hayley drove first, then we swapped at the halfway point and I drove back. So much fun hooning across the ice! The sun was just setting during our ride so it was just beautiful riding across the white glacier at that time of day. Only problem was my phone died with the cold so I couldn't take any pics, and my hands almost froze off completely, other than that...incredible!
On Sunday we checked out early and went to look through Reykjavik some more. It was so so sleepy, no one was awake or about on the Sunday morning! We went and had hot chocs then wandered some more, finding ourselves at the church. We went up to the bell tower at the top which had a great view of the city, again really pretty as the sun was rising.
Overall, Iceland was an incredible holiday, even just the 4 days was full of some amazing experiences! Would definitely recommend it to anyone...just remember to rug up!
