Top things to see & what tours to join in Iceland

If you haven't heard about the trivia on Iceland (and Greenland), you'll probably think Iceland is full of glaciers. Well, it's not. It does have some ice but it has more green. It's Greenland that has more ice and less green. This is the reason why sometimes they are referred to as "Green Iceland" and "Icy Greenland". :)

Anyway, I finally got to visit Iceland last month and I've to say that I've never seen a place that has such diverse and breath-taking natural resources. 

Here are some of the top things to see in Iceland as well as the organized tours we joined: 

Blue Lagoon. It's one of the most popular tourist spots in Iceland. If your arrival or departure time from Reykjavik is within the operating hours (10am to 8pm) of Blue Lagoon, you might want to go to Blue Lagoon straight from or to the airport since it's nearer (20 mins away from the airport) than if you're coming from the city (45 mins away). You can find some tour options to Blue Lagoon here.

Blue Lagoon

Please note though that the Blue Lagoon isn't a hot spring.  The lava pool is naturally made and the water comes from the geothermal plant next door.

The area outside of the Blue Lagoon premises is also nice.  Check this out -

Outside the Blue Lagoon

One of the classic tours to take while in Iceland is the Golden Circle Tour.  We joined one organized by Extreme Iceland.  The duration is about 8 hours. 

Here are the places covered by the tour:

Hellisheidavirkjun Geothermal Plant

The geothermal plant houses an interactive exhibition explaining the development of geothermal energy in Iceland, how these plants supply water to houses all over Reykjavik and how they keep the streets of the city center of Reykjavik ice-free during winter.  Amazing.

We also went to see this crater lake which reminded me of our very own Taal Lake - 

Crater Kerid, a volcanic crater lake

Then we went to see these beautiful waterfalls -

Faxi Waterfalls

Faxi Waterfalls up close

Among the several waterfalls we've seen in Iceland, Gulfoss is the most beautiful and breath-taking for me.  I was just awe-struck by looking at it.   

Gulfoss Waterfalls

   

Gulfoss up close

There's a viewing deck on the left side of the Gulfoss falls and the water pressure is so strong that you will get wet by the glacial mist as you walk by.

Pathway going to the Gulfoss viewing deck

Gulfoss Waterfalls viewing deck

See the tiny silhouettes on the cliff?  Yes, those are people on the viewing deck.  The Gulfoss waterfalls is massive!

For lunch, we stopped over at the Geyser Geothermal area. Within an hour, you have to take your lunch as well as explore the area on your own. So if you want to maximize time, just grab a quick lunch, then immediately check out the geysers.

Geyser Geothermal area

See the steam in the background of the photo above?  Those are hot springs with water as hot as 80°C to 100°C as the signage shows.  But the most famous in the area is Strokkur.   

Strokkur, the famous Geysir

Strokkur spouts about every 5 minutes and it projects steaming water to a height of about 60-100 feet.  It's amazing to witness Strokkur spout.  

We also stopped by a family farm called Efstidalur where we had ice cream.  Yum!

While at the farm, we also had a chance to see beautiful Icelandic horses.  Some refer to them ponies but they are actually horses.  There are about 70,000 of these in Iceland.

These horses were brought over by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago. Iceland has a very strict rule when it comes to horses since they want to preserve the breed. Thus, it's forbidden to import horses to Iceland.  Export is allowed, however, once an Icelandic horse goes overseas, it can never return to Iceland.  So even horses that are sent for competition overseas have to be sold afterwards.  

After our quick stop at the farm, we stopped over a lake near a resort called Fontana.

Lake Laugarvatn

The Laugarvatn area has several geothermal springs. One of the hot springs connected to the lake is Vígdalaug. What is its significance?  When the Icelandic nation became Christian, the pool was consecrated by the Norwegian priests and used as a baptism pool.   

While we were there, we also spotted a mound where rye bread is being cooked underground since there were hot springs nearby - that's how Icelanders traditionally cook rye bread.  The bread should be ready to be served the next day. :)

Traditional way to cook rye bread - underground!

After that, we visited another beautiful waterfalls called Oxararfoss (honestly, I can't remember any of the names of the places we've visited because the names are so long, hard to spell and hard to pronounce! Haha...I had to search for each of the names as I was doing this post because the only ones that I could clearly remember are Strokkur, Gulfoss and Blue Lagoon.  Haha....).

 Öxarárfoss waterfalls

Our last stop was the Thingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Thingvellir National Park

The Thingvellir National Park  is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It is where the Icelandic parliament was formed in 930 AD, making it the oldest parliamentary site in the world.  Of course during that time, the forms of punishment were still brutal.  Our tour guide pointed to us the place where men were hanged or decapitated, and where women were drowned to death. :( 

From the viewing deck of the Thingvellir National Park

The Park has also many remarkable geological features such as it is where the Eurasian and American tectonic plates meet.

On another day, we also joined a South Coast of Iceland tour organized by Arctic Adventures which booked via Viator.  This one is about 11 hours long.

On this tour, we went to see 2 more beautiful waterfalls.

Skogafoss Waterfalls

Seljandsfoss waterfall. You can also walk behind the waterfall if you want to.

Our lunch stopover was at Reynisfjara Black sand beach.  Lots of things to see here. 

Reynisfjara, black sand beach

There are several beautiful rock formations in various forms at the Black sand beach (easier to say than Reynisfjara! Haha...).  Check these out - 

These beautiful rock columns are called Gardar.

I wonder how were these columns formed?!  They look so perfectly carved! 

Ok, I quickly googled to satisfy my curiosity. According to what I read, columnar basalt is created by the cooling of lava flow. Cooling causes a contraction of the lava which creates fractures that are perpendicular to the surface of the lava flow.  When the contraction occurs at the center or evenly spaced out between fractures, a hexagonal fracture pattern usually develops. And the slower the lava is cooled, the more regular the columns are.  

Behind the Gardar is a cave made of the rock columns.  

Beautiful cave that's made up of the rock columns

Check out how beautiful the cave is. It's unbelievable how nature has produced such a beautiful pattern. It really looks as if the rocks have been carved.  Amazing!  

See the 2 rocks or what they call sea stacks below?  According to folklore, 2 trolls attempted to drag a ship to land but were turned to stone as daylight broke.  

Icelanders believe in elves, fairies, gnomes and other supernatural beings.  This is a sensitive topic and it's best not to initiate discussion unless they openly share stories about their folklore. But they have a lot of interesting stories to tell with lessons to learn.  :)

BTW, while at the Black sand beach, don't go near the water.  As the tour guide warned us, never ever turn your back from the waves (meaning no selfies!) since the waves are unpredictable, sweeping and strong.  There have been unfortunate fatal accidents of tourists being swept away by the waves in the past.   

The highlight of our South Coast trip was the Glacier Hike at the Sólheimajökull Glacier.  My friend and I didn't actually know that there was real hiking. We thought we'll just go near a glacier mountain and take photos. Haha...  

See the metal spikes?  Those are crampons so you can walk on ice without sliding.

We had a certified glacier guide who taught us the basics - how to put on crampons (the metal spikes you attach to hiking shoes), how to walk on ice (should be heavy steps so the spikes will dig into the ice), what to do when you accidentally drop the ice axe (never try to catch it or you might just slide all the way to the edge and fall off) and how to go down when it's too steep (you should step sideways using the ice axe as support). 

This is the Sólheimajökull Glacier. It's also called the Shrinking Glacier as it has shrunk and retreated by about 1 kilometer in the last decade due to Global Warming. :(  

The entire time we were hiking, all I could think of survival.  I'm not really an athletic person and my balance isn't so great so even if most would probably find the activity easy, it was an effort for me! Haha...

Beautiful ice formation

At the top of the Solheimajokull Glacier 

You know how stressed I was from the hike?  By the time we got down from the glacier mountain, my inner shirt was wet with sweat.  Haha...

But I was so glad we did this activity.  What I thought was just picture-taking on ice ended up as one unforgettable experience. Haha...  

The  last organized tour we joined was the Game of Thrones Tour.  Duration is about 8 hours.  

Our first stop was the place where Brienne and The Hound fought, and where Arya left the injured Hound bleeding to death.   I didn't know where to point my camera but there were lots of boulders like these in the area.

 I googled for the GOT scene and here's the photo.  I had the wrong angle and looks like the wrong boulders.  Haha.... 

It must have been difficult to shoot the fight scenes here because the area is near a cliff.  Check out the beautiful backdrop with some traces of snow.  

The next stop was the location shoot for this scene where one of Daenerys's dragons suddenly emerged from a cliff catching a shepherd by surprise.  Here's a photo I got online but it doesn't show the beautiful background when the dragon continued to fly.

Here's the cliff from where the dragon emerged. 

And here's the beautiful background where the dragon continued to fly.

Our third stop was the passageway to Eyrie.   Here's a scene I got online showing Little Finger and Sansa passing through.  The Hound and Arya also had a scene in the same passageway. 

Here's the view from top of the actual passageway they used for the GOT shoot.

And here's how it looks like from below.

As our tour guide explained to us, in the TV series, it looks like it's a long passageway but in the actual shoot, they only used a short strip. The characters just kept on going back and forth in that strip to make it look like it was a long passageway.   And sorry to disappoint, but the Eyrie isn't also in Iceland.  It was explained to us that some of the scenes in GOT for one place e.g. the Eyrie, are actually shot in 2 or 3 different countries. Such logistical effort. Wow.  

The next stop is the Era Viking Lodge which GOT used for a scene where Wildlings attacked a village. Here's a photo I got online.   I actually don't remember watching this scene.  I must have looked away because it's a massacre scene.  Haha...

And here are the photos I took from the place.  It looks so peaceful! No sign of attack by the Wildlings. Haha... 

And this is an actual replica of a Viking settlement.  A Viking house was unearthed in a nearby place and this is the replica they made of it.

Our final stop was the location shoot for that scene where The Hound woke up and thought Arya escaped but he found her by the waterfalls practicing with her Needle.  Here's a photo I got online.

And here's the place where they shot it - so beautiful! 

You actually have to walk a distance to get to the falls but the landscape is just so beautiful.  Check out the surrounding areas - 

It looks like all the GOT locations in Iceland are outdoors.  It would also be interesting to see a few of the  structures like the Iron Throne or Winterfell or Castleblack in a GOT tour though I am not sure in which countries these are shot.

BTW, we had a bonus side trip in the GOT tour.  They brought us to the Icelandic Horse Park.  What was its connection to GOT?  Apparently there are some Icelandic horses in the TV series.  They named a few main characters who used Icelandic horses in the show but I could't remember any of them. Haha...

The horse park had a theatre and we got to watch some Icelandic horse show. What did I discover about Icelandic horses?  They are a unique breed.  Why? All horse breeds have 3 natural gaits - the walk, the trot and the gallop.  But Icelandic horses have 5!  The walk is the slow pace.  The trot is a 2-beat gait.  The canter is a 3-beat gait. The tolt is a 4-beat gait (32kmh).  And the flying pace can equal the full speed of a gallop (48kmh).  All 5 gaits were gracefully demonstrated during the show.  I've never imagined a horse could have 5 different gaits!  Haha...

Before I forget, here's an interesting trivia.  This pile of rocks is called a Cairns and are considered a historic landmark in Iceland.

Cairns were built in the earlier times to serve as markers along routes for travelers to find their way in fog or snow storm.  They are highly protected in Iceland - you are prohibited from destroying or adding new rocks to the old Cairns, and you cannot build new ones either.

Here are some photos I took from the bus.

Beautiful view but I can't remember what mountain or volcano these are.  I am a hopeless case when it comes to Icelandic names because the names are long, hard to pronounce and impossible to spell. Haha...

Iceland has also a very diverse terrain.  Sometimes all you can see is a vast space of brown moss, or vast space of volcanic rocks, or a vast space of green moss. It makes you feel as if you've just been transported to a different planet. I am not kidding, check out these photos - 

Doesn't this last photo look like a setting in The Martian?:)

Anyway, that's it.   These were all the organized tours we joined to explore the natural resources of Iceland.  It's an overload of breathtaking sights!  I wasn't able to keep track on how many wows I said while I was in Iceland. Haha... It was really overwhelming just looking at these marvels of nature.  :)

Check out my other posts about Iceland:
Top 10 travel tips when visiting Iceland
Foods to try in Iceland
Top things to do in the city of Reykjavik