We took an Overseas Adventure Travel tour of Iceland with my in-laws. We began in Reykjavík, rode in a bus along the west and north coast, flew back to Reykjavík, then back in the bus for the “Golden Circle” of central and southern Iceland tourist destinations.
Our flight arrived late morning local time, very late at night jet-lag time. We took a taxi to the Hilton hotel where it was still too early to check in, but too late to get breakfast. We bought some snacks from the lobby gift shop, stored our luggage, and washed up a bit in the very nice lobby bathroom. Then it was time to join our tour group. We all boarded a city bus for a short ride to the downtown/old town area.
We came to Iceland to see museums and stuff… I wondered if this one would be on the tour?
We did not visit that one. There seemed to be construction and cranes all over Reykjavik. We learned a bit about the Parliament Building. It doesn’t have to be too big for a country of about 300,000 people.
Here is almost the entire tour group with our guide in front.
Reykjavik means “smokey bay”. The smoke spotted by early settlers was from geologic/geothermal activity. This little smoking shack just outside our hotel parking lot is generating electricity from hot gases emerging from the ground. There were several within a few blocks of the hotel.
We had a “welcome dinner” in the hotel restaurant, then adjourned to a meeting room for drinks with our tour guide. We did introductions, since we would all be traveling together for ten days, and discussed rules, logistics, etc. We finally went to bed around 10:00, luckily the curtains were fairly light-proof.
