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Published: October 30th 2016
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Iceland – The Land of Stories!
Despite having over 100 active volcanoes it is still nesting Europe’s largest glacier, it leans over the Arctic circle yet it is warmed by the Gulf stream, Iceland truly is the Land of Fire & Ice.
Marks of Human hand are few and far between on this wind swept land, footprints are quickly reclaimed but stories stay forever.
Such is the sheer force & beauty of this place that the Viking warriors have turned into the poets and family stories into Epic Sagas.
There are some stories we never want to end but rest assured this is only an introduction!
The love for road trips and surreal places made us visit this country named Republic of Iceland or Lýðveldið Ísland as they call it in Icelandic. So, when the destination is decided a lot of questions arise…. What is the best time to visit? what places to visit? how to travel within the country? what kind of budget is required? were some of them to begin with.
This required detailed planning as suppose to a
domestic tour which is pack your bags and set off!
The option was to travel the entire country which would have taken at least 15 days or more and the 2nd option was to travel the southern part which is relatively more populated with frequent tourists and can be done around in 10 days. We choose the later as it suited both, for us and our employers. ;-)
Usually, October is an off season and is relatively cheaper with less tourists than in June to August season, which isn’t the case after the heroics of Icelandic football team in the EURO 2016 which got them onto a Global map forever. The Air tickets were booked well in advance (could be a gamble as most of them are non-refundable) which means we got it cheaper.
Visa normally is a breeze which is received within a week but for us there had to have some action! The Denmark embassy which issues Visa for Iceland had some ‘technical issues’ & ‘limited staff issues’ and were only issuing visas on the basis of departure dates. We noticed that a lot people have received Visas just a couple of days before their departure.
This made things difficult to plan as most of our expenses were prepaid and in case of any unanticipated case with visa authorities we could have got in a muddle! Thankfully we got the visa 8-9 days before our departure which left us with ample time for shopping!
As 4 days of our tour was in a self-serviced cottage, we required a stock of groceries and how apt we take it from India. That saved us a lot of hari patti. So finally, we decided to stay 4 nights in the South West region near the Capital, 3 nights in the south and 1 in South East. Now the big daddy in the house was to be decided. Renting a car to travel within the country. After reading numerous blogs I found out that the best way to explore this country is to travel by car. A lot of people do these stupid 2-3 days tours called the Golden Circle but we wanted to explore a bit more. So here is our story!!
Day 1 --
We reached Reykjavik around 4:00 pm local time which means our flight was 30 mins delayed when we left
Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the landing was smooth and finally we were in ICELAND baby!!
As we had booked our Airport shuttle from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik prior, we saw 4 – 5 buses stationed outside the airport. We took care of our foreign exchange at the airport where the exchange rates were good and we bought a Vodafone prepaid card which had unlimited talk time and 1 GB of 2G data for 2000 Kr (Rs 1200) which is very expensive! but Iceland is expensive!
Around 6:00pm we head out for our bus and saw a whole host of ……nahh… 1 person standing next to bus which turned out to be the driver of the bus. I approached: we have booked the shuttle to reach to Reykjavik BSI, he looked at us and said: Yeah right, sure! He turned away and said do I now have to take 2 people in a 35 seater bus??!! He contacted someone on his walkie talkie (yes! All cab/bus/public transport in Iceland has a walkie talkie with the drivers to contact their office) and turned to us and said let’s wait for some time. Without wasting any time, I said: yes, of
course, let some more people trickle in! We waited for about 15-20 mins more and only 2 people joined us and that’s how a 35 seater bus takes 4 passengers on a 45 km drive! This is Iceland!
After reaching the bus stand in Reykjavik we had a task on our hands or I must say on our legs, as we had to walk a couple of kms to reach our Hotel with 23+23 kilos of luggage. I set the GPS on ‘walk’ mode from the Reykjavik BSI to our Hotel. (Note: The entire Iceland google map was already downloaded for offline use which made our lives very easy)
We had this kind of companion for the walk who made it cheerful!
Finally, we reached our Hotel and it was 8 pm already! We had planned to visit Harpa (which is a concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavík) & Hallgrimskirkja church, both look stunning at night but as both were on either side of our hotel and we did not have much time before mid-night. So, decided to go to the Church and will cover the concert hall in the
morning! (the clock of the church was not working therefore showing different time)
Situated in the centre of Reykjavík, it is one of the city's best-known landmarks and is visible throughout the city.
The church is designed to resemble the basalt lava flows of Iceland's landscape.
There is a statue of a Norse explorer Leif Eriksson in front of the Church who is credited with being the first European to reach North America. Many Historians believe Eriksson was the first to travel to North America (which is Canada now) well before Christopher Columbus.
You will find amazing wheels in Iceland and being a country where Snow storms are usual thing you require these kinds of beasts!!
We walked backed to our Hotel and had a pizza on the way as most of the restaurants were closed. Tomorrow our 1st officially full day in Iceland!!
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