Oh My Gosh, the last full day of our adventure around Iceland! Hard to get our heads around that!
We had a nice, leisurely, breakfast at hotel Katla, as it was just a short jaunt into Vik where we were starting our day. We spotted a beautiful church on the hill overlooking the town and stopped for, yet, more church pictures. I think Greg believes I spent my formative years in a monastery 🙂
From there we stopped at the famous black sand beach, also on the outskirts of town. Wow, so beautiful, the photos really don’t do it justice!
Our special excursion today was an ice cave adventure which started on Vik and took us a short distance out of town to the Katla Ice Cave. The cave is in some new black ice (from a recent eruption), only 900 years old!
That’s not a problem with the picture above loading on your computer, that’s the black ice we were standing on!
We donned our safety helmets and ice crampons, and headed up the glacier.
The views up to the cave were spectacular.
Because the ice is constantly melting, it’s an ever changing landscape, and there is constant work required to keep the path to the cave open.
Once you’re there, though it’s otherworldly.
Even on the way out, the views were amazing!
After that fabulous excursion, it was time for some equally fabulous fish and chips at Mia’s Country Van, just outside our next stop, Skógafoss waterfall.
Skógafoss is a beautiful 60m waterfall, with a stairway to the top that will take you to a number of other falls further up the valley. Just getting to the top and back down was enough for me!
From Skógafoss, we did a quick drive by Skógar, a major farm that also had a church until 1890.
From Skógar we were off to yet another waterfall (can anyone say ‘land of 1,000 waterfalls’!), Seljalandsfoss. This waterfall, besides being beautiful, has the distinction of a path at the bottom of the cliff which makes it possible to walk behind the fall.
It was very windy, making the path into and out of the back of the falls a recipe for getting soaked!
From Seljalandsfoss, we headed to Gullfoss (the Golden Falls”), one of the biggest and best known waterfalls in Iceland.
An added bonus along the way was a herd of Icelandic horses along side the road. So beautiful.
Ellen captured a great video clip as they were running along side the road; I’m sure she will share if you ask her 🙂
Our final stop of the day was Geysir, its name the source of the English word “geyser”. It is believed that Geysir started spouting in the 13th century.
From Geysir we headed to our hotel for the evening, a bit subdued knowing that tomorrow our trip around Iceland would be coming to an end. Hard to believe it’s been 10 days already. Tomorrow we’re in Reykjavík, where we turn in the car and get sorted for our cruise to Norway!
