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My wife and I tend to take a short break towards the end of the year and last weekend, together with another couple, we took a trip to Reykjavik.
All I can say is that it was a hoot and well worth going. We arrived on the evening of Saturday 13th and were shuttled from Keflavik airport to collect our rental car from SADcars. These guys claim to be the cheapest car rental in Iceland and only rent older cars (think Rent-a-Wreck) and although they get mixed reviews on TripAdvisor, I'd say that as long as you go into the deal with your eyes open, they're fine. We had a Gen 1 Yaris 1litre 5-door which had covered 342,000km when we picked it up! OK, it looked scruffy (the guy doing the handover started pointing out the dings and marks on it and then looked at us and said, "ok, you can see it's been around a bit. Just try not to add too many more digs or scrapes"), but everything worked and it hauled the four of us and our luggage around in reasonable comfort and - most importantly - warmth.
We took my Garmin Zumo satnav with us and I'd pre-loaded a number of POI's (hotel, key attractions, etc.) which proved invaluable. We stayed a little out of town at the Arctic Comfort Hotel which was nothing special, but was warm and comfortable. The town's "main" street, Laugavegur, was around 3km away costing around kr2,000 in a taxi which compared favourably with the kr350 x 4 bus fare, so a taxi it was!
Sunday's weather was reasonably bright but cold and windy (-4c with windchill down to -10c) and we wandered around the town, visiting the Cathedral:
View from the top of the spire:
And then down to the seafront:
(yes, it was as cold as it looks!)
...before going out on an organised tour to see the Northern Lights - which was ultimately unsuccessful, but quite entertaining.
Monday was brilliant weather so we decided to go out sightseeing in the Yaris So, off we went to Geysir, which entailed a 60 mile drive, mainly on compacted show and ice to see this:
...before moving on to Gullfoss (the Golden Falls):
Although not as deep as the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara, I reckon they were probably even more spectacular and the Icelandic authorities have done everything they can to keep them as natural and undisturbed by tourism as possible. We also saw this:
We left the falls just as the sun was going down in the hope that we may get to see the Northern Lights on the way back to civilisation, but once again they proved elusive
Tuesday the weather turned, with snow and hurricane force winds, so we spent most of the day holed up in various Reykjavik bars. There's a great smartphone app available called "Appy Hour" which lists all the Reykjavik bars and their Happy Hour times and prices and saves quite a bit
The bad weather extended into Wednesday which meant our flight out was delayed, but all in all it was a great trip and thoroughly recommended if you fancy something a little different.
All I can say is that it was a hoot and well worth going. We arrived on the evening of Saturday 13th and were shuttled from Keflavik airport to collect our rental car from SADcars. These guys claim to be the cheapest car rental in Iceland and only rent older cars (think Rent-a-Wreck) and although they get mixed reviews on TripAdvisor, I'd say that as long as you go into the deal with your eyes open, they're fine. We had a Gen 1 Yaris 1litre 5-door which had covered 342,000km when we picked it up! OK, it looked scruffy (the guy doing the handover started pointing out the dings and marks on it and then looked at us and said, "ok, you can see it's been around a bit. Just try not to add too many more digs or scrapes"), but everything worked and it hauled the four of us and our luggage around in reasonable comfort and - most importantly - warmth.
We took my Garmin Zumo satnav with us and I'd pre-loaded a number of POI's (hotel, key attractions, etc.) which proved invaluable. We stayed a little out of town at the Arctic Comfort Hotel which was nothing special, but was warm and comfortable. The town's "main" street, Laugavegur, was around 3km away costing around kr2,000 in a taxi which compared favourably with the kr350 x 4 bus fare, so a taxi it was!
Sunday's weather was reasonably bright but cold and windy (-4c with windchill down to -10c) and we wandered around the town, visiting the Cathedral:
View from the top of the spire:
And then down to the seafront:
(yes, it was as cold as it looks!)
...before going out on an organised tour to see the Northern Lights - which was ultimately unsuccessful, but quite entertaining.
Monday was brilliant weather so we decided to go out sightseeing in the Yaris So, off we went to Geysir, which entailed a 60 mile drive, mainly on compacted show and ice to see this:
...before moving on to Gullfoss (the Golden Falls):
Although not as deep as the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara, I reckon they were probably even more spectacular and the Icelandic authorities have done everything they can to keep them as natural and undisturbed by tourism as possible. We also saw this:
We left the falls just as the sun was going down in the hope that we may get to see the Northern Lights on the way back to civilisation, but once again they proved elusive
Tuesday the weather turned, with snow and hurricane force winds, so we spent most of the day holed up in various Reykjavik bars. There's a great smartphone app available called "Appy Hour" which lists all the Reykjavik bars and their Happy Hour times and prices and saves quite a bit
The bad weather extended into Wednesday which meant our flight out was delayed, but all in all it was a great trip and thoroughly recommended if you fancy something a little different.