Iceland

I visited Iceland twice, once in 2019, passing some pretty touristic places, and recently in 2022, looking for more remote places int he highlands. Here are my visual souvenirs from these two fantastic roadtrips.

First trip in 2019

Since we wanted to make our life easy, we booked our trip with Guide to Iceland.
They organized the car rental, the hotels and defined for us the perfect roadplan.

SECOND TRIP in 2022

I carefully planned this trip, inspired by James Rushford's book Photographing Iceland.

THE HIGHLANDS 2022

In 2022, I explored a portion of the highlands that involved traveling from Austurey Cottage hotel to the north along route F35 to Kerlingafjoll and Hveradalir. This magic place, under the snow, enchanted us. The following day, we journeyed to Landmannalaugar, stopping at Sigöldugljufur, Stutur Crater, and Ljótipollur. On day three, we woke up early to trek in Landmannalaugar, exploring Reykjakollur, Bláhnúkur, and Brennistalda. However, as the day drew to a close and we were driving back on the F208, we encountered a setback with two flat tires. We had to wait for two hours for a tow truck to arrive, which eventually took us to our hotel near Hvolsvollur.

Brenninsteinalda in Landmannalaugar

Landmannalaugar shot with the drone

Climbing Bljanhukur

JökulLsárlón

The most incredible discovery for us was Jökulsárlón in the Vanatjökull National Park. I could be visiting this place every year of my life and still be amazed. It is a glacial lagoon, bordering Vatnajökull National Park in southeastern Iceland. Its still, blue waters are dotted with icebergs from the surrounding Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier, part of larger Vatnajökull Glacier. The Glacier Lagoon flows through a short waterway into the Atlantic Ocean, leaving chunks of ice on a black sand beach. In winter, the fish-filled lagoon hosts hundreds of seals.It was not high season and the silence was incredible, leaving us peacefullness to observe the melting icebergs and the seal plaing or resting on the icebergs. It is scary at what speed the glacier melts : what you see in these pictures, are Iceberg fallen from the glacier which are going to end up in the sea’s salted water and disappear forever. How sad.

Jökullsarlon Lagoon

Ducks in Jökullsarlon Lagoon

Deb in Jökullsarlon Lagoon

A seal in Jökullsarlon Lagoon

Katla Ice Cave

The glacier

Birds and seals give life to the lagoon

PHOTO FLIGHT

For the first time, I took a flight with the only intend to shoot from above. This was an amazing experience, and I think that the results are very satisfying. I flew with Atlantsflug, from the Skaftafell airstrip. We visited the Vatnajokull Glacier, the Tungnaa riverbeds, the Laki and Lakagigar craters, Landmannalaugar and landed in Skaftafell 1h30 later. Here are a couple of images from my photo flight.

GOLDEN CIRCLE

The Golden Circle (Icelandic: Gullni hringurinn [ˈkʏtlnɪ ˈr̥iŋkʏrɪn]) is a tourist route in southern Iceland, covering about 300 kilometres (190 mi) looping from Reykjavík into the southern uplands of Iceland and back. It is the area that contains most tours and travel-related activities in Iceland.

In 2019, we drove from Snaefelsness to the Pinkvelir national park and whent on to visit the Golden Circle, amonsgt which Skogafoss, Seljalandsfoss, Kerid, Geysir, Gullfoss, Landeyahöfn, the Katla Ice cave. We stayed in a great hotel called Hotel 360 with a very original decoration, and a very warm welcome. The owner is a painter and photograher.

In 2022, we drove to the highlands and then cam down to the golden circle, visiting once again Drolahey, Reynisfjara, and the cascades around, up to Jökullsarlon and Hofn.

Dyrholaey's arch, near Vik

Dyrholaey black sand beach

Kerid Volcano

Seljalandsfoss in b&w

Gullfoss

Skogafoss

Reynisfjara

SNAEFELLNESS 2019

The Snæfellsnes is a peninsula situated to the west of Borgarfjörður, in western Iceland. It has been named Iceland in Miniature, because many national sights can be found in the area, including the Snæfellsjökull volcano, regarded as one of the symbols of Iceland.

We drove from Reyjavik directly to Olavsvik for a Whale tour eraly morning. Then we took the day to visit the rest of the peninsula, amongst which Bjarnarfoss, Arnarstapi, Hellnar, Djúpalónssandur Black Beach and finished the day in Budir, where our hotel was and enjoyed a delicious meal – the best of our stay in Iceland.