Reykjavik, Iceland 14.12.2024

 Iceland, Reykjavik

Travel Day (14.12.2024)

Landed at around 10am, straight through passport control and registered for our bus to the hotel, waiting for a little while as Bus didn’t leave until 11.15. 

Weather was horrible when we arrived, chucking it down, also its weird in the winter as they only have daylight between 11-3 otherwise it's as dark as night rest of the time, which really confuses you as i feels really later in the evenings.

Arrived at the hotel around midday, checked in, dropped bags and off we went. We didn't want to sleep in the end as think we would have felt worse for doing so.

Luckily the main part of the city was round the corner from our hotel and of course first stop….. Brewdog! Had to get my samp of course as we was there so had a nice, well deserved pint and some really yummy loaded fries & chicken strips.

Once we had a nice full belly, we went off to have a walk round the city is lovely, very colourful and pretty. First stop was Hallgrímskirkja church, it looked lovely, we visited in the day and again then in the evening as it was all lit up purple. 

Walking around we come across Rainbow Street, it looked so nice with all the colours down the road.

Once we had a good walk we felt we deserved a drink so we decided to go to the irish bar for a drink

And popped back to the hotel for a bit of a rest/ sleep before going back out in the evening, about 6pm we went back out, trying the sky bar at the hotel before going out and grabbing some food, we had a lovely cocktail in the sky bar. We weren't sure where to go to eat, a lot of places looked busy or expensive so we ended up in an American bar, had some lovely hot wings and a cocktail.

The Dubliner was a lovely little Irish bar, very quiet at the time we went but was just right as we were so tired. 

We tried to find the Christmas market and found a few huts and a ice rink but overall was very disappointed that they didn’t really have a good one, however the city is decorated lovely and lots of Christmas shops around to look in.

Day 1 (15.12.24)

Day trip today around the south of the island, although tired, I am really looking forward to it. Woke up at 7am ready to catch our bus for 8.30am for the tour. We got down to reception and looked outside to see a covering of snow !! How exciting !! 🙂.

The journey was about an hour and a half to the first stop but on the way we had a quick pit stop at a services for wee breaks and a coffee, then another half hour down the road we made it to Skogafoss,the waterfall there was beautiful, looked so lovely and even better with the snow.

We spent about half an hour here before moving onto stop number two which was Solheimajokull glacier. Took about 10 mins to get here, once the coach had parked we had about a 10 minute walk along the mountains in the snow to get to the glacier.

This was again really beautiful but scary walking to it as some of the snow where it had been walked on was pretty icy and slippery but really enjoyed it.

Next stop was for some lunch in a small town called Vik. I had the most delicious lamb goulash with a pint of lager, whilst Chris had a burger with some chips.

Once we had finished lunch and everyone was back on the coach we headed to stop no4, Reynisfjara beach. We had to be careful as they had warnings out due to the waves being high and sea tide was dangerous, not that I wanted to go anywhere near the freezing cold water. It was pretty cold but we was lucky that between the snow blizzards we seem to be getting every few minutes we had some blue sky whilst at the beach.

Once we finished at the beach we went off to our last stop, Seljalandsfoss, there was another gorgeous waterfall, whilst there we also had some hot chocolate which was recommended by our tour guide Tina and did not disappoint!

They had a lovely little gift shop here as well where we both grabbed our obligatory fridge magnets. I even found a small gonk that i could fit in my bag to bring home.

That was our last stop so we then had a 1.5 hrs trip back to our stop where we needed to get off, we did decide to get off at a different stop in the end so we could walk into the city again to grab a drink and something to eat.

We were dropped back at the church and walked down rainbow street to find the Einstok pub. We had about 3 in there, we didn’t really want to leave as it was such a lovely, cosy little bar but we knew we had to get up earlyish for our flight home in the morning.

Once we had our drinks we walked back to the hotel, stopping at one of the street food places and grabbed a hotdog. I'd seen something online that they were supposed to be banging! We of course then had to try one and to be fair they were very nice as hotdogs go. Back at the hotel we packed and was ready to go in the morning.

This trip we stayed in Central Hotels Arnarhvoll. I totally recommend this hotel, it was in the perfect location, right by the bus stop for the airport and our tour, also the city centre, restaurants, bars and the church were all just round the corner, literally a 5/10 minute walk.

Home time (16.12.24)

We were so sad to be going home today, we had just the best time on our first overseas holiday together, can’t wait for our next one now.

We got picked up at 07.30am to be taken back to the airport. The hotel was about a 45 min journey, we found it easy to navigate and found our gate nice and easy.

Landed home around 15.00 and back to reality, roll on the next trip!