We slept in today until 9:00a (5:00a back home) and made breakfast of egg sandwiches, OJ, and tea before showering, packing up and heading south towards Reykjavík. The weather today was 46 degrees and cloudy, with a light misting in Reykjavik. The wind was up today, however, making walking around outside a bit chilly.

Our first stop of the day was Glanni Waterfall, an hour away from our cottage. Reached by a hiking trail, this waterfall sits near an ancient lava field & has a viewing platform. We parked quickly and had a small trail that lead to the falls. You could hear them from the parking lot. These falls were the deepest we saw on the trip. We snapped some photos before making our way back to the car.

Another hour away was Deildartunguhver, a hot spring in Reykholtsdalur, Iceland. It is characterized by a very high flow rate for a hot spring and water emerges at 97 °C. It is the highest-flow hot spring in Europe. We could see the steam rising up above the ground as we drove up. This was an awesome stop as it was a small line of water bubbling and steaming up, with a hotel and greenhouse right next to it. There was a cute little cart outside selling tomatoes from the greenhouse and the hotel had a hot spring & spa for their guests to enjoy. The best part was that when walking along the railing, the steam kept you warm; it felt like you were getting your pores opened up like in the shower.

Afterwards we drove another hour in to the Alafoss Wool Store. Alafoss is a waterfall on the river Varmá in Mosfellsbær, Iceland. A wool factory of the same name has adjoined the waterfall since 1896, when a local farmer imported machinery to process wool using the energy from the waterfall. This was the same wool store I visited on my last trip to Iceland, but it was cool seeing the family’s reaction to its walls of yarn, sweaters, and antique machinery on display. I regretted not buying a sweater last time so I picked out a darling grey and black turtleneck sweater with white snowflakes knitted in for 25000 krona (~$250.00 USD….don’t worry, they give you the tax back at the airport). As I was walking to the register, I also found the softest black rabbit fur headband that I just had to have. Mom also bought a similar sweater, but hers was a zip up, compared to mine which is just a pullover.

We then drove the last 30 minutes into Reykjavík, were we parked at Hallgrímskirkja again and walked downtown.

We had dinner at Geysir Bistro, which is a cozy, modern little restaurant tucked inside the main strip that has seafood, traditional icelandic dishes and soups. There was only three other tables in the restaurant so we got a great table right by the windows, perfect for people watching. Dad and mom ordered lobster soup, and Jay ordered French onion soup. The for our main dishes, dad got Tiger prawns, chili, ginger, garlic, and coriander. Mom got scallops fried in butter, apples, cashews, cauliflower purée, parsley, browned butter. I got deep fried Camembert, homebaked bread, and red currant jam. Jay got minke whale pepper steak with cauliflower purée, bacon potatoes and Madagascar pepper sauce.

Our dishes were all crazy delicious, especially the lobster soup. We then spent the next two hours walking around, looking at all the shops, murals, and there was even a big bike race going on through the middle of town so we watched the bicycles wizz by!

At 7:00p, we had to meet our last host of our Air BNB, Esther. She was so sweet with her apartment in a quiet suburb just outside town. We got all settled in, for a night of packing and preparing for our flight back home to Ohio.

This was such an incredible trip, one that will be at the top of my books because not only did I get to see and experience all of Iceland, with its mountains, waterfalls and beautiful landscape, but I got to being my entire family along on this experience too! I highly recommend anyone looking for adventure to take a chance and come to Iceland. You won’t be disappointed!