This trip we wanted to traverse the country via highway 1 which is the Ring Road and goes all around the country.
We arrived in Keflavik from London where we had spent a night to catch our early flight, picked up our car and headed north. Ultimately we spent that first night in Hvammstangi. To make things easy, imagine Iceland as the face of a clock. The international airport is at Keflavik which is at the end of a spit at ~8 o'clock. Reykjavik (the most populated place in a sparsely populated country) is around that spit about 50 miles away. From there the highway turns north. Hvammstangi is at ~10 o'clock. It is 3+ hours away from Keflavik and by the water.
The coast of Iceland is very jagged with many inlets from the ocean so that impacts the weather quite a bit. We started in sunshine but it was drizzly and overcast by the time we got to our hotel. The wind was also blowing and it felt pretty raw. There wasn't really much out that way and the hotel is at the end of a dirt road which our hostess said is just Icelandic roads and the locals think nothing of it. We found a few places where we were on dirt roads but they are pretty good and well maintained. Reminded me of many of the roads we had found in Alaska, too. Since it was 20 minutes to a restaurant, our hotel offered meals. We had a delicious lamb soup and bread for dinner.
Iceland was formed by volcanoes and has a semi-active one yet, as you probably remember from the 2010 ash cloud that impacted airline travel for weeks. It shows up in the terrain with black sand, hillsides, and crusted plains.There are major glaciers in the interior of Iceland so waterfalls are very common. Trees are not so common which is one striking feature of the landscape. Some parts are green and others look pretty barren. There are also no shoulders on the highway and very few pull-outs. Therefore, pictures were limited to what I could get through the front windshield (not optimal) or through my side window with the window down. I tried to keep car parts out of the pictures but didn't always succeed.
Our second day took us to Neskaupstadur which is at the far eastern edge of Iceland, at ~3 o'clock. That day we crossed the northern edge of Iceland and drove basically due east (by way of a rather jagged line on the map). To get to the guesthouse we were staying in, we had to go through a mountain via a tunnel that was over 5 miles long. Quite an engineering feat, I thought.
To leave the third day, we retraced our route back through that very long tunnel. We headed south to Kirkjubaejarklaustur. I can't say that once let alone 3 times. That took us to about 6 o'clock and close to the most southern part of Iceland.
This route took us past Jokulsarlon Lagoon again. That is an amazing place. It is a lagoon where the glaciers calf into the water. They can create some interesting shapes.
When the calved pieces get small enough, they move thru the inlet into the ocean and many get caught on the black volcanic beaches. Great place to get some unique pictures.
Everyone has to take pictures of it.
You can also pay to take a tour out into the lagoon and see the icebergs up close and personal.
Our last day took us the final distance back to the airport where we caught our flight home. It also rained most of the way so visibility for pictures was extremely limited.
This building along the way looks like it was built into the hillside.
All of Iceland's power comes from geo-thermal vents. Some are harnessed and they even have to cool the temperatures sometimes to use the heat.
Iceland also loves their Icelandic horses. We saw more horses than sheep, which they allow to roam freely most places.
Iceland also has a lovely purple flower that grows along the roadside and in fields. Makes for some nice scenery. And they have arctic tern which are really cool to watch.
