So, the Golden Circle is a little "triangle" of 3 of the high points of Iceland near Reykjavik. It's a nice little circuit that every tour group makes and if you only have 1 day in Iceland it's what you should see. It includes the hot springs including Geysir (namesake of all other geysers in the world), gulfoss waterfall and Thingvellir national park, an area along the mid-Atlantic ridge and also the site where the Icelandic parliament met once a year until the 1700s. Yes, they met outside, in what is now a national park.
And a "SuperJeep" is a vehicle that has some serious hydraulics, gigantic tires, and all sorts of extras that allow it to drive through water, across rivers, on rocky terrain, etc.
It's like a 4WD on Steroids. In one of these vehicles you're able to go to a lot of places regular buses can't take you, more into nature. We had wanted to do one of these tours but they are really really really expensive (over $200 per person) and so Robbie found a golden circle trip that was done with a SuperJeep where Alexa was half price. Since we were going to do a Golden circle tour anyway it was more economical.
So our guide, subcontracted from Mountaineers of Iceland, shows up with actually a "SuperVan,"
Despite the fact that we were the only 4 on the tour. We were excited about having a private guide for this tour.
Our first stop was at Thingvellir National park. It's sort of touted as a place where you can have "one foot in Europe and the other in America" because it's on the mid-Atlantic ridge separating the European continental shelf from the North American shelf, but that's not exactly true. The "dividing line" is much hazier than that and is several kilometers wide; there's not really any one point where one stops and the other starts. There are plenty of places in this park that make for a good picture if you wanna go with that story though...
Alexa started sort of freaking out because she saw a bee and there were some gnats around, but other than that we all had a nice time walking through the park.
Our "guide" dropped us off at one end and told us he would meet us with the van at the other end. He did tell us a little about the Parliament, and how they would come and set up a big tent village in the summer to get all the legislatin' done. Mike thinks all governments would be a lot more efficient if they had to conduct all their business outside in Iceland. something to think about.
After Mike and the guide had a spirited conversation about the van's hydraulics or transmission or something, and a few more pictures of the beautiful scenery,
we hopped back in the van and headed towards Gulfoss (actually that was supposed to be a later stop, but the weather was nice as we passed by and so our guide decided to have us do it then rather than risk rain later.)
Not a ton to say about Gulfoss, other than it's pretty. "Gulfoss" means "Golden Falls," and on some days there's a persistent rainbow in the mist which looks beautiful in pictures. No rainbow but still lovely, and powerful, and inspiring. And this isn't even the biggest one in Iceland!
Robbie and Alexa headed up after the initial obligatory shots but Mike and I wanted to get closer.
A video from up next to the waterfall. It was wet.
Then it was time to hop back in the monster van and go on to the fun stuff.....kick the SuperVan into gear and go drivin over the rocks to the edge of the Langjokull Glacier for...dum dum dummmmm....snowmobiling!
I was really impressed by how much fun Alexa had. Thought she might be scared, but she thought it was a blast!
After coming down from the glacier we drove back to Gulfoss waterfall to the visitor center there to have a very late lunch (Probably close to 4:00 by now). Robbie had a lamb salad sandwich :) We picked up a few souvenirs and then headed towards the hot springs and the eponymous Geysir.
On the way I made the driver stop so I could take a picture of this amazing river.
Finally we arrived at the hot springs. You can tell you are there from the unpleasant sulfur smell, lack of vegetation, steam and hordes of people.
"Geysir" has been dormant for quite some time now, but we still made a pilgrimage to say hi, and then wandered about seeing all the bubbling hot pots, steaming pools etc. Then we gathered around the most active geyser and waited with everyone else for it to go off.
And...that was pretty much our Golden Circle tour day! We returned back to Reykjavik after a 45 minute or so drive.
We really really enjoyed the trip up on to the glacier. It was definitely worth the money.
But
Our guide absolutely sucked. One part of traveling in a small group vs. a big tour bus was supposed to be more personalized treatment, you know, you could ask questions, he could talk about more of what we were interested in etc. I dont know if it was because GreyLine paid for the "cheap" version of the trip or if we just got a miserable guide, but getting this guy to talk was like pulling teeth. We would ask questions and he would respond with one word or one sentence answers or ignore us completely. When we got to these amazing sights he would just drop us off at one end and tell us he would meet us at the other. We were so disappointed as it was one of our only chances to really spend time with an Icelander and we were all so interested in the folk tales, history etc as well as life in modern Iceland. The only time he talked animatedly about anything was when talking about the van mechanics ith Mike and a little bit when we talked about the cost of living in Iceland. The ride back to Reykjavik most of us actually just slept.
If I had to do it over again I would just drive myself around the sites and pay for a snowmobile ride separately. Or do a different tour. This tour was waaaaay to expensive for us to be gypped as we were on the quality of the information given and can not be recommended. Because the guide was actually from Mountaineers of Iceland I can't recommend them or the SuperJeep tour through GreyLine/Iceland Excursions. We had an amazing time despite the guide, though.
Arrived back in Reykjavik around 6:00. We did some more souvenir shopping, ate some lobster soup and hot dogs and called it a night.
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