Three Days in,
Reykjavik.
Reykjavik, Iceland
waterfalls, geysers, midnight sun, hot springs
Itinerary
3 chaptersReykjavik on foot
Reykjavik, Iceland
The shape of the day
Reykjavik is small, and that is its trick. Everything today sits inside a walkable square kilometre or so, from the bakery on Laugavegur up to the church and back down to the water. Start with breakfast, climb the tower while the light is still low and the lift queue is short, then let the morning drift downhill to the Sun Voyager and the harbour. Lunch is soup. The afternoon is deliberately empty, because the next two days are long ones in the car, and dinner is booked.
Before you set off
Layers, and a waterproof shell over them. August here runs around 10 to 13°C and the wind off the bay takes the edge off whatever the forecast promises. Book Grillmarkaðurinn now if you have not already. Card pays for everything, including car parks and public loos, so there is no reason to carry cash. If you plan to swim at any point on the trip, pack flip-flops and remember that Icelandic pools ask for a soap shower without a swimsuit before you get in.
Getting between the stops
Walk. The whole loop is around 3 km with the hills built in, and the only real climb is Skólavörðustígur up to the church, which pays you back with a row of painted houses on the way. Church down to the Sun Voyager takes about fifteen minutes, and the seafront path carries on to Harpa in another ten. If the weather turns, the Strætó city buses take the same card, and the centre is small enough that you are never far from a café.
Worth knowing
Icelanders switch to English the moment they hear an accent, which is helpful and slightly deflating if you have practised saying takk. Tipping is not expected anywhere and service is in the price. Shops on Laugavegur shut earlier than you would think, often around six. And keep an eye on the clock rather than the sky. In mid August the sun goes down around half past nine and the light hangs about for hours afterwards, which has undone plenty of evening plans.
- 0108:30 · 45m
Sandholt Bakery
Opens early, which is rather the point. Croissants and the rye bread with butter go quickly on a summer morning, and the queue moves fastest before nine. The coffee is properly made. Prices are Reykjavik prices, so treat this as breakfast rather than a snack, then walk it off up Skólavörðustígur.About this place↗ Open in MapsA family bakery and café on Laugavegur, Reykjavik's main shopping street, doing sourdough, laminated pastry and a proper sit-down breakfast.
HistoryThe bakery has stayed in the same family through several generations, one of the older businesses still trading on the street. The current bakers trained in France, which shows in the croissants.Why it's famousIt is the bakery Reykjavik locals name first, and one of very few places in the centre serving serious pastry from the moment the doors open.Did you knowThe dark rye on the breakfast plate comes from a tradition of baking loaves slowly in geothermally heated ground, which is why Icelandic rye tastes so sweet and dense. - 0209:45 · 60m
Hallgrimskirkja
The church itself is free to enter, the tower lift is ticketed and cashless. Go at opening and the queue is a few minutes rather than half an hour. Fifteen minutes on the platform is plenty, and the light is better looking west over the roofs. If an organ recital is chalked up by the door, rearrange your morning for it.About this place↗ Open in MapsReykjavik's Lutheran parish church and the tallest building in the city, with a 74-metre tower and a viewing platform reached by lift.
HistoryDesigned by Guðjón Samúelsson, then Iceland's state architect, from plans drawn in the 1930s. Building started in 1945 and ran on for four decades, so the church was only consecrated in 1986.Why it's famousThe stepped concrete front echoes the basalt columns you will meet at Reynisfjara, and the tower gives the view most people take home from the city.Did you knowThe statue of Leifur Eiríksson outside is older than the church behind it, a gift from the United States in 1930 marking a thousand years of the Alþingi. - 0311:15 · 30m
Sun Voyager
Free, always there, a couple of minutes off the Sæbraut path. Come early or late, since midday light flattens the steel and there is usually a small queue for the clean shot. Ten minutes covers it, unless you carry on along the waterfront to Harpa, which is a pleasant twenty-minute walk with the bay on your right.About this place↗ Open in MapsA steel sculpture on the Reykjavik waterfront by Jón Gunnar Árnason, facing the bay and Mount Esja across the water.
HistoryIt won a 1986 competition for a piece of outdoor art marking 200 years of Reykjavik as a chartered town, and was finally put in place on the shore in 1990.Why it's famousAlmost everyone reads it as a Viking longship, and the setting (open water, mountain, low northern light) makes it the most photographed object in the city.Did you knowThe artist described it as a dream boat and an ode to the sun rather than a Viking ship, and he died before it was unveiled. - 0412:00 · 75m
Harpa and the Old Harbour
The foyer is free and worth twenty minutes for the glass alone, best around the middle of the day when the light works through it. The old harbour is a five-minute walk on. Whale and puffin boats leave from these piers, but a sailing runs three hours or more, so treat it as a separate morning rather than an add-on.About this place↗ Open in MapsA concert hall and conference centre on the harbour front, home to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, next door to the old fishing harbour.
HistoryWork began before the 2008 crash and stopped dead when the bank behind it failed. The state and the city took on the half-built shell and finished it, and it opened in 2011 as the only project of that era to survive.Why it's famousThe glass facade was developed with the artist Olafur Eliasson, and the building took the Mies van der Rohe Award for European architecture in 2013.Did you knowThe facade is assembled from stacked twelve-sided glass units, a shape worked out from the basalt columns found along the Icelandic coast. - 0513:45 · 60m
Icelandic Street Food
The draw is the refills. Lamb soup and creamy fish stew come in bread bowls and you can go back for more, which is close to unheard of at these latitudes. Counter service, so it fills at one and empties fast. Skip the sides. Two bowls and a coffee comes in well under a sit-down lunch anywhere else in the centre.About this place↗ Open in MapsA small counter restaurant in central Reykjavik serving traditional Icelandic soups and stew at prices that stand out in an expensive city.
HistoryIt came out of the wave of owner-run places that opened in the centre as tourism grew through the 2010s, built around home cooking rather than a long menu.Why it's famousFree refills of lamb soup, which in Reykjavik counts as genuine news, and a bread bowl you eat once the soup has gone.Did you knowKjötsúpa, the lamb and root vegetable soup, is old household cooking rather than a restaurant dish, and most Icelandic families make it from whatever the cupboard holds. - 0619:00 · 120m
Grillmarkadurinn
Book a table, and ask to sit downstairs if you would rather talk than watch the room. The grill is the reason to come, Icelandic lamb and whatever came off the boats that day. The tasting menu is the easy choice and also the expensive one. Allow two hours, and accept that this will be the biggest bill of the trip.About this place↗ Open in MapsA grill restaurant on Lækjargata in central Reykjavik, cooking Icelandic meat and fish over an open flame.
HistoryIt opened in 2011, one of a run of ambitious Reykjavik kitchens that started buying straight from farms and boats and naming the suppliers on the menu.Why it's famousIt is the standard answer when an Icelander is asked where to eat well in town, and the room, all timber, stone and low light, does half the work.Did you knowIcelandic lamb spends the summer loose in the highlands eating wild grass and herbs, and the sheep are gathered in by hand each September in the réttir round-up.
The Golden Circle in a day
Golden Circle, Iceland
The shape of the day
A loop of roughly 250 km on good roads, and the only day of the three where the driving is genuinely relaxed. Thingvellir comes first, while the rift is still quiet, then east to Geysir for Strokkur and a few kilometres on to Gullfoss, which you hear before you reach the railing. The two food stops are not filler. Efstidalur puts you in a barn beside the cows, Friðheimar seats you among the tomato vines, and Kerið at the end is short, steep and worth the twenty minutes.
Before you set off
Fill the tank in Reykjavik, since fuel costs more out here and the stations are further apart than the map suggests. Reserve Friðheimar in advance, it is the one booking on this route that regularly sells out. Bring a waterproof for Gullfoss, where the spray reaches the lower path in any wind at all, and shoes with some grip for the loose gravel at Kerið. Thingvellir parking is paid, at the machine or through the app, and the rangers do check. Kerið charges a small fee at the gate.
Getting between the stops
Hire car, and nothing else really makes this order work. Thingvellir is about 45 minutes from Reykjavik on Route 36, then Route 37 runs past Laugarvatn to Efstidalur in roughly half an hour. Geysir is fifteen minutes on, Gullfoss another ten. Coming back you drop south to Friðheimar near Reykholt, then join Route 35 for Kerið, which sits about an hour from town. Coach tours cover the same circuit, but they cannot pull in at a dairy farm on a whim.
Worth knowing
The Alþingi met at Thingvellir from around 930, which makes it one of the oldest parliament sites anywhere, and Icelanders treat the ground as national rather than scenic. Stay on the marked paths, and off the moss especially, since a single footprint can take decades to grow out. Speed limits are 90 km/h on sealed roads and 80 on gravel, cameras are common, and at a single-lane bridge the first car to the sign goes first. If you meet an Icelandic horse over a fence, admire it and do not feed it.
- 0109:00 · 90m
Thingvellir National Park
Park at P1 for the top of the Almannagjá rift, then walk down the gorge to Öxarárfoss and back, roughly an hour at a normal pace. Parking is paid at the machine or through the app, and rangers check. There is no shelter on the path, so wind gear matters more than sunshine. Silfra dives book out weeks ahead.About this place↗ Open in MapsA rift valley and national park about 40 km east of Reykjavik, where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart, and the site of Iceland's old open-air parliament.
HistoryChieftains gathered here from around 930 to set laws and settle disputes, and the Alþingi carried on meeting on this ground until 1798. The republic was proclaimed here in 1944.Why it's famousYou can walk between two continental plates on dry land, which is close to impossible anywhere else, and it has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2004.Did you knowWater in the Silfra fissure has filtered through lava for decades before it arrives, and divers there can see around 100 metres ahead of them. - 0211:00 · 40m
Efstidalur II farm
Order in the barn café, where a window looks straight into the cowshed and the milk in the ice cream came from the animals on the other side of the glass. Half an hour is right. There is a full restaurant on site too, so this is your fallback lunch if you decide against Friðheimar later.About this place↗ Open in MapsA working dairy farm on Route 37 near Laugarvatn, with an ice cream barn, a café and a restaurant alongside the milking parlour.
HistoryThe same family have farmed here for generations. They opened part of the barn to visitors so people could see where milk actually comes from, and started making ice cream on the spot.Why it's famousThe cowshed window. You eat ice cream a couple of metres from the herd that produced it, which children find far more interesting than any waterfall.Did you knowIcelandic cattle have been isolated since the settlement more than a thousand years ago, which makes them one of the purest cattle breeds left in Europe. - 0311:55 · 60m
Geysir geothermal field
Strokkur goes off every five to ten minutes, so nobody waits long. Stand upwind of the vent, the water is scalding, and keep behind the ropes because the crust is thinner than it looks. Give the walk up to the viewpoint ten minutes for the whole steaming field laid out below. Forty-five minutes covers the lot.About this place↗ Open in MapsA geothermal field in the Haukadalur valley, with hot springs, mud pots and two well-known geysers, Great Geysir and the reliable Strokkur.
HistoryGreat Geysir turns up in written records from the 1200s, after earthquakes shook the valley. It has fallen silent and woken again several times since, usually after more earthquakes, and rarely erupts now.Why it's famousThe English word geyser comes from Geysir itself, taken from the Icelandic verb geysa, to gush.Did you knowFor years people tipped soap into the vent to force Great Geysir to perform for visitors, a practice long since abandoned. - 0413:10 · 45m
Gullfoss
Take the upper platform first for the shape of the two drops, then the lower path for the noise and the spray. It will soak you within minutes, so a waterproof beats an umbrella, which the wind here destroys. Forty-five minutes is enough. The café at the top does a decent bowl of lamb soup if the weather closes in.About this place↗ Open in MapsA two-tier waterfall on the glacial river Hvítá, dropping in two stages into a canyon roughly 70 metres deep and a couple of kilometres long.
HistoryEarly in the 20th century investors wanted the river dammed for hydropower. Sigríður Tómasdóttir, daughter of the landowner, fought the scheme and walked to Reykjavik to argue against it. The falls were never dammed and are now protected.Why it's famousSheer volume, and the way the spray throws rainbows across the canyon on a bright day, which is where the golden in the name comes from.Did you knowA memorial stone to Sigríður stands above the falls, and she is often described as Iceland's first environmental campaigner. - 0514:15 · 75m
Fridheimar tomato farm
Reserve well ahead, weeks ahead in summer, because the greenhouse only seats so many. The tomato soup arrives with bread and refills, and the Bloody Mary is made with the fruit growing over your head. Skip it if you have already eaten, since the point is sitting among the vines. An hour and a quarter is about right.About this place↗ Open in MapsA family tomato farm near Reykholt where the restaurant sits inside the working greenhouse, tables set between the rows of vines.
HistoryThe family took on the greenhouses in the 1990s and grew tomatoes all year using geothermal heat and electric light through the dark months, then opened the growing house itself to visitors.Why it's famousLunch under the tomato plants with the growing lights on overhead is not something you can do in many places, and the soup has become a fixture of the Golden Circle.Did you knowBumblebees do the pollinating here, brought in from the Netherlands and kept in hives inside the greenhouse. - 0616:10 · 40m
Kerid crater
A small fee is collected at the gate, one of the few private charges on this route. The rim loop takes about twenty minutes, the steps down to the water another ten each way. Walk it so the sun is behind you for the red walls. The path is loose gravel, so trainers with grip beat smooth soles.About this place↗ Open in MapsA volcanic crater in the Grímsnes area, roughly 55 metres deep, with steep red and black walls around a lake at the bottom.
HistoryIt formed around 3,000 years ago. Rather than blowing outwards, the cone is thought to have emptied its magma chamber and collapsed into the space, leaving the bowl you see today.Why it's famousThe colour. Rust-red slopes wrapped around opaque blue-green water, a combination you rarely get in one frame.Did you knowThe lake has no stream running in or out. Its level rises and falls with the groundwater table underneath, so the crater looks different from one season to the next.
South coast and a soak
South Coast, Iceland
The shape of the day
The longest drive of the three, and the one that pays back most. Route 1 runs east below the glaciers to two waterfalls that could hardly be less alike, one you walk behind and one you climb beside. Then the coast turns black: the promontory at Dyrhólaey, the columns and stacks at Reynisfjara, lunch in Vík. Turning for home is where the day changes gear, because the final stop is not a sight at all, just warm water at the edge of the bay with the light going gold.
Before you set off
Waterproof jacket and waterproof trousers, and this is the day you will actually use them. Seljalandsfoss soaks anyone who walks the path behind it. Book Sky Lagoon for early evening before you leave, and pack a swimsuit and flip-flops somewhere you can reach without unpacking the boot. Both waterfall car parks charge, by machine or app. Fill up in Hvolsvöllur or Vík rather than assuming a station will appear at the moment you want one.
Getting between the stops
It is around 190 km each way, so reckon on two hours out and two back with the stops on top. Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss sit right off Route 1, half an hour apart. Dyrhólaey is a signed turn with a rough, steep upper road, and Reynisfjara has its own approach a few minutes further east. Vík is five minutes beyond that. Heading home, Sky Lagoon is in Kópavogur, so you reach it before the city centre and save yourself a double-back.
Worth knowing
Reynisfjara is beautiful and it kills people. Sneaker waves run far up a beach that looks calm, drag backwards, and nobody swims against water that cold. Read the warning light at the entrance and keep everyone well back from the wet sand. Weather on the south coast changes faster than anywhere else on this trip, so check road.is and vedur.is in the morning instead of trusting last night's forecast. At the lagoon, shower properly first. It is not a suggestion, it is house rules everywhere in Iceland.
- 0109:30 · 45m
Seljalandsfoss
The path behind the water is the whole point, and you will get wet, so waterproof trousers earn their place in the boot. Parking is paid at the machine. Then walk five minutes north to Gljúfrabúi, tucked inside a cleft in the rock, which most coach groups drive past. Allow forty-five minutes for the pair.About this place↗ Open in MapsA waterfall on the Seljalandsá beside Route 1, dropping around 60 metres from what was once a coastal cliff, with a made path running behind the curtain of water.
HistoryThis line of cliffs marked the coast at the end of the last ice age. As the land rose and the sea drew back, the old shoreline was left stranded inland, with rivers pouring over the edge.Why it's famousVery few waterfalls anywhere let you walk behind them on a proper path, and in June the midnight sun still lights it.Did you knowThe river rises in meltwater from Eyjafjallajökull, the glacier and volcano whose 2010 eruption shut down European air traffic for days. - 0210:45 · 45m
Skogafoss
Arrive before the coaches for the rainbow, which needs morning sun and spray at the same time. The staircase on the right climbs to a platform at the top, several hundred steps, about twenty minutes if you are not racing. The base is genuinely drenching, so keep the camera bag shut until you are ready to shoot.About this place↗ Open in MapsA waterfall on the river Skógá, roughly 60 metres high and 25 metres wide, at the foot of the old sea cliffs on the south coast.
HistoryLike Seljalandsfoss it drops over a former coastline. The path above the falls carries on as the Fimmvörðuháls trail, which crosses the pass between two glaciers to Thorsmörk.Why it's famousThe wall of spray throws single and sometimes double rainbows on bright days, and the falls have stood in for half a dozen imagined worlds on film.Did you knowLocal legend has the settler Thrasi burying a chest of gold in the cave behind the water, and a ring said to have come from it ending up on a church door. - 0312:00 · 45m
Dyrholaey
The upper road is steep, narrow and off limits to some hire cars in poor weather, and parts of the reserve close during the puffin breeding season, so read the sign at the bottom before committing. The lower car park still gives you the arch and the black coast running east. The wind up here is on another level, so hold on to hats.About this place↗ Open in MapsA promontory around 120 metres high at the southern edge of Iceland, with a lighthouse on top and a large sea arch punched through the rock below.
HistoryIt was thrown up by an underwater eruption and stood as an island until the coastline built outwards and joined it to the mainland. A lighthouse has marked the headland since the early 1900s.Why it's famousThe arch, the view along the black coast in both directions, and one of the easiest places in Iceland to watch puffins from dry land in summer.Did you knowPuffins live out on the open ocean for most of the year and come ashore only to breed, so these cliffs are usually empty again by the middle of August. - 0413:00 · 60m
Reynisfjara black sand beach
Stay well up the beach and keep your eyes on the water. Sneaker waves here have killed people and they arrive without warning on calm days, so never turn your back on the sea. Check the warning light at the entrance. The basalt columns against the cliff are the best of it and sit safely back from the surf.About this place↗ Open in MapsA black sand beach near Vík, backed by a cliff of hexagonal basalt columns and looking out at the Reynisdrangar sea stacks.
HistoryThe sand is basalt ground down by the Atlantic, fed by eruptions and glacial floods from Katla beneath the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap. The columns formed as thick lava cooled slowly and cracked into regular shapes.Why it's famousBlack sand, hexagonal columns and the stacks in a single frame, which has put the beach into a great many films and videos.Did you knowLocal stories explain the stacks as two trolls caught dragging a ship ashore when the sun came up, which turned them to stone where they stood. - 0514:15 · 75m
Halldorskaffi
In Vík, so it is the natural stop before the two-hour drive back. Lamb, fish soup and pizza, all sound, none of it fussy. It fills between one and three when the coaches come through, so eat slightly early or slightly late. Walk in and wait if it is busy, and allow a little longer than you think.About this place↗ Open in MapsA restaurant in Vík í Mýrdal, housed in Brydebúð, one of the oldest buildings in the village.
HistoryThe house was built in the 1800s in the Westman Islands and shipped across to Vík, where it worked as a shop and store while the village grew around it.Why it's famousIt is the dependable meal in Vík, in a building with more history behind it than anything else on the street.Did you knowVík sits below Katla, one of Iceland's most active volcanoes, and the village practises evacuation drills for the meltwater flood an eruption under the ice would send down. - 0618:00 · 120m
Sky Lagoon
Book a slot before you leave in the morning, because summer evenings sell out. The seven-step Ritual takes about an hour and you go round once, so do it first and settle in at the infinity edge afterwards for the sunset. Bring flip-flops. Icelandic bathing rules apply, which means a proper shower without a swimsuit before you get in.About this place↗ Open in MapsA geothermal lagoon at the water's edge in Kópavogur, just south of Reykjavik, built into a turf-walled bathing area facing out across the bay.
HistoryIt opened in 2021, designed to echo an old Icelandic turf house and to carry on the country's long habit of bathing outdoors in naturally heated water.Why it's famousThe infinity edge runs straight into the North Atlantic, so on a clear evening you soak while the sun goes down over the bay, and in winter people watch for the northern lights from the water.Did you knowThe seven-step Ritual alternates the warm lagoon with a cold plunge, a sauna with a picture window on the sea, and a body scrub, a modern take on a very old bathing routine.
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