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Old 19 Apr 20, 07:54 PM  
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LN89
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C&L Iceland - January 2020

Iceland

Hi and welcome to my trippie for our trip to Iceland. I am Laura and my DH is Chris, we are both 30 and love travelling.

Some pictures of us from our incredible trip to WDW and cruise in September.





We traveled to Iceland in January, I wasn't planning to do a trippie, but as I am now at home for the foreseeable future, I thought I would write one as I do enjoy doing them. As I hadn't planned to write one this might not be the most detailed, but hope you can enjoy the photos.

We have both wanted to go to Iceland for sometime but always knew it was a gamble as to whether you would see the northern lights. I knew we would love seeing the country even if we didn't get to to see them so I decided to go for it and book it

We were initially due to go for three nights, however back in September/ October time I had an email from Easyjet that they had cancelled our return flights - there were originally two flights each day but cancelled the later one which we were meant to be on. We could move our flights free of charge and the earlier flight meant we would loose almost a whole day so decided to stay an extra night.
I booked an apartment from Booking.com, it was about a 10 minute walk from the centre of Rekyavik. This was about £300 for 4 nights, we decided to fly from Luton as the flights were better time and really reasonable. These were £130 for both of us!

We drove to Luton the night before and stayed at the Premier Inn. Our flight was very early, leaving at 6.50am so we drove to the airport and parked our car at the long term car park for about 4.30am.

We stopped for some breakfast, we got on the plane and departed on time. We were both tired so slept most of the flight, it was a very busy flight, I don't think there were any spare seats.









We landed and had booked a transfer with Greyline, we landed much earlier than we expected but they put us on an earlier bus. The transfer was 104EUR return. I had worked out what was the nearest bus stop and we were dropped off there. It was very cold and there was a lot of snow, dragging our cases in it was not easy!

We got the apartment about 11.30, we were just sorting our stuff out to put in the luggage locker when our room became available. We dropped our stuff off then went to explore. I realise I didn't actually take any photos of the apartment!

We wandered into Reykavik and stopped off at a restaurant for lunch, I had seen online photos of soup in bread bowls and I couldn't wait to try one! We found a place called Down Town Cafe which did chicken soup bread bowls, these were amazing! It came to about £25.







We carried on wandering round for a while then went back to the apartment for an afternoon nap as we had a northern lights tour booked for that evening, so after our very early start we wanted to get a bit of sleep! We slept well, then got ready to leave about 6.30.

I had pre-booked the northern lights tour with Greyline which was 76 EUR for both of us. We were being picked up at our nearest bus stop at 8.30, we went for dinner at a Vietnamise restaurant first. I had a chicken noodle soup and Chris had a prawn singapore noodles. This was £22 for the dinner.





We were picked up at 8.30 and driven to a spot about one hour away from the town so it was as dark as possible. There were a number of other coaches there, they had a 8pm tour and 9pm one (we were on 9pm one). It was very busy in the spot, we went into the use the toilet - there was only two so it took about 20 minutes!

It felt very cold, we were able to wait on the coach and the guides would call you if there was any sightings. I never realised the lights can only appear for a few minutes at a time! After about 2 hours, they called off the viewings as it started to cloud over so they decided we were not going to see anything. If you do not see anything you get to re-book onto another night. We headed back to get dropped off and got back to our apartment about midnight and went straight to bed.

Day 2

We had a lie in as we were very tired, then got up and ready. We had gone to the supermarket the day before and got some pastries and fruit for the room to have for breakfast. We walked up to Miklatun Park, then headed up to Hallgrimskirkja church.











We were not able to go out to the viewing tower as there was a Sunday mass on and it opened later on. We decided to carry on our walk around and went down to the water front and saw the sun voyager.













We stopped off at a place called Icelandic Street Food for lunch, this was recommended in our guidebook and it did not disappoint - another soup in a bread bowl. Lamb strew for me and seafood chowder for Chris. You got free refills of the lamb stew, but I could only manage one. Chris had a refill of lamb once he finished his chowder! This was about £30 with a soft drink.





We headed back to the Hallgrimkirkja and went up to the viewing tower, tickets were about £13. The views were great, we had such lovely weather - clear but cold!









We walked further down to the water front.





We then stopped for a drink, following by a massive ice cream for me





We then walked back to our apartment, we were knackered as we had walked a very long way (24km by the end of the day!). We went back for a rest then headed back out to find a fish and chip shop for dinner.







I had chicken burger as I don't eat fish (a waste when in Iceland!) and Chris had fish and chips which he said was absolutely amazing. This came to about £27.

Day 3
we had booked the Golden Circle Tour, I had booked this before we left and it was 112EUR for us both. We were picked up about 9am and the first stop was about 1 hour drive away.

It was snowy today and the roads were mad, completely covered in snow - definitely wouldn't fancy driving along it! We felt perfectly safe in the coach though.



We first visited Thingvellir National Park, this was lovely and we enjoyed wandering around the snow.







We then carried on to the Gullfoss Waterfall, the snow was absolutely mad when we got there! We could barely see anything! It then calmed down and the sun came out, so we got some lovely photos over the waterfall. There was a cafe so we stopped for a sandwich before we then headed to the next stop too.









The final stop was the Geysir Hot Spring, we got some amazing viewings of the Geysir and it went off about three times quite close together! After some time wandering round we then left and had the drive back to the city. The whole tour was about 7 hours as there was a drive between each of the stops. We thought it was a great trip and definitely worth doing to see the different sights.







Continued below in the comments

Edited at 08:45 PM.
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Old 19 Apr 20, 07:57 PM  
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We got back and had a relax and got changed before we went back to centre to go for some food. We decided to go for a nice meal tonight (other nights we had gone to cafe/ fast food type places), we stopped at a place called Geysir Bistro. I had a lamb shank and Chris had some sort of seafood platter. This came to about £55. It was fairly expensive (as is most of Iceland) but we really enjoyed the meal.







We headed back to our room after dinner and got an early night.

Day 4
We were up early as I had prebooked up to go to the Blue Lagoon. I had booked the 9am slot which was cheaper than the 10am slot or later. The tickets to the Blue Lagoon were pricey, about £118 for us both and the transfer was also about £60! However, we realised we might only visit once so we wanted to make sure we visited.

We were picked up from our hotel directly about 8am, we stopped and were transferred onto a coach. We arrived at the Blue Lagoon about 9am. We booked a robe as this wasn't included and then headed in and got changed. It was very cold about 0, there is an entrance to the lagoon from the inside which was good as saved us going outside!





We relaxed for a while in the Lagoon and then headed inside on some of the loungers. We spent time dipping in and out of the Lagoon. The ticket included a drink in the bar in the Lagoon so we went in and got a drink, I had a blueberry smoothie and Chris had a beer.

You also got a face mask included so we went and got these and relaxed before washing them off. We stopped for a sandwich each before spending some more time in and out of Lagoon.



We finished about 1.30 and got our transfer back to the city.
We were not able to see the Northern Lights on the first night we were able to rebook for another night. It is a late night and as we had had two early starts on the other days we decided to wait until the last night.

We always knew there was a chance we were not able to see them and we had heard that 19/20 had not been a good year for sightings. We stopped for a pizza at a place near the bus stop before the trip. These were very good!



We were picked up about 8.30 and driven to a spot, a different one from the other night. There were only a couple of coaches and it seemed much quieter.

It was very cold, about -10 at the coldest! We waited for a while, they said it was promising as there was some light in the distance. We went back to wait on the coach, getting on and off now and again. We had been therefore about an hour and a half and most people had got back on the coach, people were clearly getting restless but they announced we were staying for another half an hour. There were a few groans about this, but after about 10 minutes they suddenly called us and said the lights had appeared.

We rushed off the coach and saw the lights - we were so excited and they then just started getting better and better, before long the whole sky was covered! It was incredible, better than we ever could have wished for and they said this was the best viewing since November!











We spent about an hour outside, looking at the lights, taking photos. We then got back on the coach and started to head back to the city. We could see the lights the whole way back and they said it was a rare occassion that it would be seen from Reykjavik and they thought it would last all night. We just couldn't believe how lucky we were!

We got back about 1am and went back to bed, it was a very late night and we were being picked up about 7am the next day so we knew we would be tired, but it was worth it.

We woke up about 6am the next morning and got ready to leave, we were knackered but it had been an incredible trip. We got our transfer to the airport and we got a flight home which was uneventful.



We absolutely loved Iceland and would definitely recommend it. It was expensive as everyone always says, but we knew that ahead of time.

I am not sure what our next holiday will be and not because of COVID-19... but because we have a baby on the way .
I was 12 weeks pregnant in Iceland, I was slightly apprehensive travelling but found it absolutely fine. I needed a few naps, we took it at a slower pace than we usually would and I made sure I wrapped up warm. I stuck to the cool sections of the blue lagoon (there is a useful map which shows all of the temperatures which is very handy) and only went in for about 10 mins at a time as I was a bit cautious. It was a great babymoon though as we won't be getting away again now before the baby arrives due to what is happening! So hopefully the next trippie will be a party of three .

Thank you for reading and I hope everyone is staying safe.

Edited at 08:52 PM.
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Old 20 Apr 20, 12:06 AM  
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What an amazing trip, Iceland is definitely on my wish list.
Congratulations on your lovely news, I can't wait for the first trip report with baby 🙂.
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Old 20 Apr 20, 06:42 AM  
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nothingless
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Wow amazing trip, thanks for your report. And congrats on your pregnancy, what amazing news!
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Old 20 Apr 20, 07:22 AM  
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What an amazing trip and how lucky to get to see the Northern Lights!

Congratulations on the baby news!
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Old 20 Apr 20, 12:22 PM  
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Brilliant trippie and piccies
We went in March a couple of years ago and absolutely loved Iceland

Huge congratulations to you both on your baby news
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Old 20 Apr 20, 01:59 PM  
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Great report thanks. I went a couple of years ago in February and loved it. We didn’t get to see the Northern Lights on our trip so I enjoyed looking at your photos. Congratulations on your baby news.
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Old 21 Apr 20, 12:37 PM  
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Congratulations to you both. Lovely news! I always enjoy reading along with your trippies, thanks for sharing
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Old 21 Apr 20, 05:25 PM  
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Great little short break and glad that you got to see the Lights.

Congratulations on your pregnancy and look forward to seeing a photo of your precious bundle in a few months time and I'm sure you'll soon have the babies first adventure planned xx
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Old 21 Apr 20, 06:00 PM  
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What a lovely trip how lucky were you with the lights
Congratulations on your pregnancy
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