Day 3 (170 miles): Vik to Höfn - Reynisfjara Beach, Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Diamond Beach, Vestrahorn

We started our day early again in order to fit in Reynsifjara black sand beach and Dyrhólaey before our drive east. Dyrhólaey is the famous keyhole arch with views of Reysnisfjara. Everything seemed pretty much open all the time (and it was light out almost 24/7), but Dyrhólaey apparently closes certain hours during bird nesting season, so we were unable to see it. Since sights are open all the time they are also free (!!!). Really, our entire time in Iceland we only paid to get into one sight ($7 each) and had to pay parking at another. 

Although we missed Dyrhólaey, these sheep greeted us excitedly, jumping up and over the hill, thinking that we were the farmer. 

Reynisfjara Beach

Reynisfjara is one of the most famous spots in Iceland for the black sand beach and the iconic basalt columns. It's also extremely dangerous due to the sneaker waves and the rip tide. Tourists often ignore the signs, but the sneaker waves can really come much further than you expect and quickly sweep you out. We arrived so early that we got to experience the beach by ourselves. It was extremely cold and windy. 

The black sand and Dyrhólaey in the background.

As soon as we got ready to leave, a ton of tourists showed up. I think it was only 7am at that point, so some people really get an early start. The beach would have been full if we had left any later. Our next stop was Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon, which looks amazingly beautiful in photos, but it was closed in order to preserve the vegetation, our second strike of the day!

The only "town" that was on our drive with any services was Kirkjubæjarklaustur, known to the locals as Klaustur. Its name means Church Town Cluster. It's set in front of the scenic Systrafoss, and we found lunch (lunch for us but still breakfast time) at a guesthouse nearby. We paid $20 each for some slices of bread, cheese, and salami.

Systrafoss

Foss a Sidu

Up the Ring Road a bit is another set of beautiful waterfalls. One sits in front of a farm, Foss a Sidu, which was mentioned in the Book of Settlements. The Book of Settlements details the Norse settlement of Iceland and describes the farm as being there even in the 9th century. 

The falls at Foss a Sidu

Falls right before Foss a Sidu

Curious sheep at the car turnoff

As we continued driving we came upon large snow capped mountains and the Vatnajökull glacier. The Vatnajökull is the largest glacier mass in Europe, and it seemed to be at every turn of our drive. The landscape changes in Iceland are frequent and never ending, but always beautiful.

You can see part of the glacier peaking out on the left. 

Rest Stops

There are long distances between towns, and even a lot of the gas stations are just a pump with no actual building. A couple years ago the government started adding portapotties along the Ring Road. There aren't a ton of them, and they show up with little warning (and can be hard to spot), but they are there. If you miss them, there are small turn outs along the road to turn around. 

Pretending to be elves at the rest stop.

The glacier

Hofskirkja Turf Church

There are six turf churches left in Iceland, five of them original. The first church at this site was built in 1343. This one was built in 1883 and belongs to the National Museum of Iceland. Turf style buildings were popular in Iceland due to the lack of trees and the insulation they provide. 

Fjallsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Fjallsárlón is the smaller, lesser visited glacier lagoon in Iceland. Sadly, the glaciers are melting and have created little lagoons with floating icebergs. Although small, Fjallsárlón is still neat to see. 

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon

Jökulsárlón is enormous and breathtaking as soon as you arrive. When we got there it was shockingly warm and sunny, which was really lucky. We stopped in the cafe to get lunch, since there was no other food available on our drive. I actually had some amazing Thai Lobster soup (Icelandic lobster). We also had sandwiches. The sandwiches in tourist spots are pretty basic and small, but the bread and ingredients are always fresh, so it's really much better than any pre-made sandwich you'd get the in US. It's more like a homemade sandwich with fresh baked bread. 

We decided to take a duck tour, we hadn't prebooked, but they had one available about 20 minutes later. There were plenty of people at the lagoon, but I think we arrived when some tour buses were leaving. The boat tour was amazing and one of the top highlights of our trip. Each iceberg has different coloring depending on whether it has picked up sediment. If it's blue, it means it has flipped over recently and it contains very dense ice. We had the nicest, most enthusiastic tour guide, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. 

Our tour guide, he chopped up the ice for us so we could taste ancient glacier water. 

Diamond Beach

Near the lagoon is a beach where some of the icebergs float out to sea and then land on the beach, thus the name Diamond Beach. 

We each grabbed some ice.

Reindeer

Our tour guide had told us to be on the look out for reindeer on our drive east from the lagoon, and we actually spotted them! 

Reindeer with the ever present Vatnajökull Glacier in the background

We made it to our hotel, Seljavellir Guesthouse just outside of Höfn. There is a particular architectural style in Iceland which involves dropping a long box in the middle of nowhere. It sort of looks like a shipping container, but it's a hotel. That's what our hotel was, it consisted of rooms on each side, and none were connected by any corridor to the main hotel. You also walked by the floor to ceiling windows of each room to get to your room. It was a little funny, but you are out in the middle of nowhere, so it doesn't really matter. The rooms were actually really nice and they provided an amazing breakfast for us. The views were idyllic and it was peaceful and quiet.

Vestrahorn

We had a lot of driving to do the next day, and since we had good weather, we decided to take a chance and see if we could get into to the Viking Cafe. I had read about it online, but it wasn't entirely clear to me whether it was open for the season. It's private property and they seem to only have a Facebook page. The Viking Cafe is actually the name of a cafe where you buy a ticket to get into an area with a Viking movie set. The movie set isn't really the attraction, but the amazing views of the ocean and the mountain Vestrahorn. You also you get access to drive close to the old NATO base area and access to a black sand beach and some hiking. We arrived around 6pm not knowing what to expect, but the cafe was open. It turns out they have a ticket machine for when they are closed. It generates tickets that give you a bar code to scan at the gate to access other parts of the property, very advanced for being in the middle of nowhere. 

The area is unspeakably beautiful, and the meager $7 per person is a small price to pay. It's really wonderful that the owners of the property allow people to access it. 

Part of the movie set

Vestrahorn

Langoustine

Höfn is known for its Icelandic Lobster (or Langoustine), so I was keen to try one of the two famous Langoustine restaurants in town, Pakkhus or Humarhöfnin Veitingahús, but the wait was 45 minutes at each!! The population of the town is only 2,000 people, so we weren't expecting city wait times. We wandered next door to Nyhöfn Nordic Bistro, not knowing it had only been open two weeks. The place is super cute, very Scandinavian inside, and has amazing food. I had some of the best soup of my life there (Icelandic lobster soup)! They also had incredible bread. The butter in Iceland is amazing. It's called Smjor and it's incredibly creamy, and they serve it everywhere.