Golden Circle, Part II

Right. Bus, Thingvellir Park, Fridheim Farm, Gullfoss Waterfall, Geysir. Where were we … ?

Argh, I’ve made a very rookie blog mistake. As you all remember from the last post, the sun is fading fast. Well … I now realize that I have almost no photos for the rest of the day. Just stories. So sorry! But here goes:

We left the geyser with the sun almost down and headed to what I initially thought was dinner. But as Thorssten explained, I realized we had yet another course before dinner! We were stopping at Efstidalur Farm to sample their skyr and ice cream and more. A working dairy farm, Efstidalur has a farm-to-table restaurant in the hayloft of the cow barn. Very cool. The windows at the far end of the room overlook the cows. Really.

We were there just briefly to taste their skyr — icelandic yogurt very similar to greek yogurt. At each setting was a small bowl of what appeared to by skyr (it was) and a small shot glass of some liquid. Oh, shots, I thought. That might just warm me up. But, no … whey. Yeah. The young lady hosting us explained how much protein was in whey and how good it was for you and we all had to down our whey shot before they’d give us ice cream. Not willing to test their resolve, I dutifully downed my whey, with a group toast of “skal” or cheers! Cream and sugar on the table were a nice addition to the very natural skyr, but a couple of spoonfuls were enough. Same with the ice cream (vanilla), although the ice cream fanatics around me were convinced that this was the BEST ice cream they’d ever had. I was reserving room for dinner!

Then, I kid you not, we were on to dinner about 20 minutes away. The next two spots on our itinerary were close by off the same parking lot. We arrived at Lindin Restaurant for dinner. A very cozy little place … the 14 of us filled up half of the restaurant. We had selected our choice of dinner earlier in the day — arctic char, lamb, or veggie. I opted for the arctic char and it was very good. Dessert was a chocolate mousse topped with a vanilla foam and watermelon chunks. The arctic char was very good …

Over dinner I got to know a few of my tour companions — three very well-traveled millennials from Boston (a guy and two gals). I came away inspired by their stories of Portugal, Croatia, and southeast Asia, if not by their love of AirBnB.

Post dinner exercise, at the other end of a very cold and dark parking lot, involved sinking into very hot water. I was very ready for that. Surprisingly, several of the tour participants couldn’t fathom the idea of going into an outdoor pool in this weather, regardless of the water temperature. THEY JUST DON’T GET IT. Fontana Spa was a series of open air hot pools, saunas, and steamrooms on the edge of an almost frozen lake with access for a quick, cold dip.

Having now bonded, the tour group mostly met up in one of the pools, with a few stragglers doing their own thing. Boy Millennial and one of the Girl Millennials wanted to check out the lake but were getting no traction until I chimed in that I’d go with them. Adult supervision seemed to lend some credence to the operation, but I knew they were in for trouble when they started to whine as we got out of the hot pool. As the adult in charge, I wondered to myself how good of an idea this was as we walked barefoot, in the dark, across the frozen gravel path to any icy set of concrete steps that led down into the dark lake. We could see about ten feet ahead of us; the rest was dark. But the biggest challenge was that I was only waist-deep in the water and it didn’t seem to be getting deeper quickly. I don’t know had far we would have had to walk to be submerged, but we all gave up and dropped to our knees, screamed, and turned back to the hot pools. Back up the icy steps, across the frozen gravel, and across the cold stone walkway to the pools. I know, a photo or two now would be awesome, wouldn’t it?

Eventually, we all hauled ourselves out of the pool and met Thorssten back in the cafe. As we all left the pool facility with our jackets open and gloves in our pockets someone in the group observed “Wow, I can see why Icelanders spend a lot of time in hot tubs … I feel so refreshed and warm.” THEY ARE STARTING TO GET IT.

And we’re not done yet. It’s 10 pm and we’re hoping to see some Northern Lights. The sky is clear, but no lights to be seen. Thorssten decides to while away some time by hiking up to a frozen waterfall. Most of us opt in; a few stay back in the warm bus. Armed with crampons and our headlights we head up a very short trail (15-minute walk?) to the waterfall. Hiking in the dark; so, so cool. I don’t think I’ve done that since Grace Hargrave made us do a nighttime hike at Brownie camp about 120 years ago. And she didn’t give us headlamps.

Back in the bus we decide to call it a night. No sign of Northern Lights across the island that night. We arrived back in Reykjavik at midnight after a very full day.