Visiting Reykjavik, Iceland
Often, we try to tack trips on to already-existing work holidays in order to maximize the number of days we can travel while minimizing the number of vacation days we have to take off. Case in point, our honeymoon next month includes Presidents Day, meaning one less 8-hour day we both have to take off.
When we found out Charlie wouldn’t have to be in DC serving at the Presidential Inauguration, our MLK weekend opened up and so we decided to book a trip to Iceland to visit my friend, Harpa, and for Charlie to see the beautiful natural wonders of the country. I hadn’t been since 2010, and hadn’t yet been in winter. The big goal of the trip was to see the Aurora Borealis, AKA the Northern Lights, which is only visible on some clear, winter nights.
We spent three full days and one half day in Iceland, the first day in Reykjavik, the second at the Golden Circle, the third day on the southeast coast and on the final day, before our 5 pm flight, we explored Reykjavik a bit more and made a stop at the Blue Lagoon.
There’s lots to tell, so I’ll be recounting the trip over a series of posts. This one will cover our time in Reykjavik!
We landed at 6:40 AM and picked up our rental car from Orange Car Rental Reykjavik. I can’t say enough praise for this company! The prices were excellent and the customer service even better.
We then made our way to Fosshotel Lind, arriving by about 8AM to find that our room was already ready for us — what a great surprise! We really enjoyed our stay at this hotel, the rooms are very small but very clean, and you’re not doing Iceland properly if you’re spending much time in your room anyway!
We immediately crashed for a 2 hour nap, as we both didn’t get much sleep on the overnight flight (thanks to the Bachelorette party behind us). When we finally got up at about 10:30, the sun was just beginning to rise, which helped us get our day started.
We headed to our first stop, the National Museum of Iceland, located on the University of Iceland campus. We learned about the settlement of Iceland by the Norwegians in the mid-800’s up through the operation of British and American troops during the Cold War.
Then, we headed to lunch at Kaffivagninn in Reykjavik harbor for the tastiest Fish N’ Chips we’ve ever had. The small restaurant looks out over the harbor and is directly adjacent to the Icelandic Maritime Museum, and just down the street from the Saga Museum.
We skipped the Maritime Museum as we felt a blustery day of 15 degrees was not a great day to do a tour of a naval vessel, but we did take a peek at the outside.
We then headed to the Saga Museum, which was a fascinating history of the settlement of Reykjavik and Iceland by the Norwegians and the subsequent power struggle over the island, from the formation of the first parliamentary government, Alþingi, to the full conversion to Christianity and it’s subjugation under Danish rule.
The Saga Museum is a series of wax figure vignettes and an audio guided tour. I personally am creeped out by wax figures, and these were particularly lifelike. They all were motionless, except one which looked like it was breathing and that was about the last straw for me. No, thank you!
On our way home, we stopped at Tjörnin, the lake in the center of Reykjavik, which was frozen solid. People were riding their bikes across to get to work! And, we saw the largest ducks we had ever seen- strong, nordic ducks! Charlie hadn’t walked on a frozen lake before, so this was extra fun!
We headed back to the hotel to drop the car off and then walked to Hallgrímskirkja, the largest church in Iceland which sits atop a hill in Reykjavik. You can see its pointed tower in the photo of me on the lake!
The church has an elevator which you can ride up into the steeple for a 360° view of the city. It was chilly, but beautiful!
We strolled down to the harbor to take in the sights!
After a windy walk back to the hotel, we met up with Harpa for an early dinner at Matwerk Kitchen. I had some very tasty mussels and Charlie had some braised beef.
We had to eat early because we were headed out on our Northern Lights tour with Reykjavik Excursions! The tour company, which picks up from hotels all over the city and is one of dozens of companies, takes tourists outside of the city on clear nights to hunt for the Aurora Borealis. They have a great policy, since seeing the Aurora is a game of chance, that if you don’t see the Aurora with your naked eye (not through a camera, more on that later) then you can re-book for another night, as long as you have to before you either see them or leave for home.
Unfortunately, Friday night luck was not on our side. Though we got some really cool nighttime shots of rural Iceland, there was no tell-tale green sky streaks to be seen.
Before the trip, I did a lot of research into how to best photograph the Northern Lights, as they are often more visible to a camera than to the naked eye. All the articles I read advised bringing a tripod, a wide-angle lens and setting the camera to an ISO of 1600–2400, and a shutter speed of 10–15 seconds. I bought an after-market lens since I wasn’t about to spend $800+ on a new lens, so some of the photos have a bit of the lens edges in them.
I’ve never done any nighttime photography before, so it was fun to play with the camera despite not having the Northern Lights to see. The above photos were taken at about 9–9:30 pm, when it was pitch black. Charlie and I had to use flashlights to see the camera settings, yet the ISO settings made it look like dusk!
We returned to our hotel and re-booked our Northern Lights tour for the next day (it was cancelled, so we then booked again for Sunday!) and crashed. We had a big day ahead of us on Saturday….