Day 9: Iceland Adventure Day 1 of 2

Firstly, I want to note how important it is to be wearing all that you packed ! I had packed so much warm clothes for this very day and ended up not wearing all that I intended because all the other Europe days had been warm. But silly me. It made me miserable to feel cold all of the time but now I know never to do the same thing again. I was decently warm though – I still had many layers, nothing ever got wet, and I had good boots.

The plan for this day was to drive eastward all the way to Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach, the most dangerous beach in Iceland famously known for its sneaker waves. It would be a 3 hour drive and there was a bakery I wanted to visit on the way there. So our first destination point was the bakery and Google Maps ended up taking us on some back roads instead of the 1 which is known as the Golden Circle. Here are photos I got from those back roads though (on which we did 1 pit stop to try to spot some natural hot springs but it ended up just being these factory-looking sites):

We made a quick rest stop as we passed through a city, and came across this school bus that was also a cafe. We did not go inside thought but I thought it was an interesting concept:

We then got to the bakery which was situated in an amazing location next to some giant rocks and mountains. We also got very delicious pastries there (I got another pistachio pastry, a pistachio cinnamon roll which did not feel too heavy):

We then finally arrived to the black beach ! Here are all my photos of and leading up to that area:

Contrary to its name, the beach is actually just a bunch of small dark pebbles!:

A close-up of some of the bigger rock formations by the beach:

Also a humbling reminder of the power of nature:

We then started heading westward again, our next stop being only 10 minutes away at the opposite side of the black sand beach at Dyrhólaey which was a giant cliff/rock with a hole. Here are my photos leading up to and of the area:

Also this was the bathroom building right before seeing the big arch. You would have never known it was just a bathroom building, I feel like they designed it to complement the surrounding nature:

Our next stop after this was to see a glacier, and in the parking and rest top area before the walk up to the glacier, I had the privilege of seeing an arctic fox ! :

Here are all the photos I took of the glacier and the surrounding areas:

I even went up and touched the glacier and tried my best to get a close-up photo of it despite all the dirt on it:

Our next and last 2 stops of this day were two very well known waterfalls. This was the first waterfall we stopped at, Skógafoss. You could even walk up to the top of it but I was feeling too cold at this point sadly. It was a very big and magnificent waterfall to behold though:

The last waterfall we saw was Seljalandsfoss. You could even see another waterfall kind of enclosed by rocks about a 30 minute walk from this main one, but again sadly I was too cold. For Seljalandsfoss, you could walk behind the waterfall so that was cool. Here are all my photos from that waterfall and the areas surrounding it:

After the last waterfall, we found this place to eat called Midgard. Food was so expensive, around $40 USD a plate. But we were grateful to have found some food. The establishment was part of some travel lodging area that seemed like a hostel and had events and activities for travelers which I thought was cool. Anyways, here are my photos from that area:

Overall, I really appreciated that all the Golden Circle stops, although they had paid parking every time, there also had nice facilities to go to the restroom and often even food !

This was perhaps my favorite photo from the day: