Today’s tour, Hot Golden Circle, was booked with Gateway to Iceland. We met our driver just after 10:30 a.m. and were the last ones on the mini-bus. The mini-bus wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been, and he didn’t want to turn on the air (it was hot in the back) – we had to ask multiple times. However, the driver was informative and did a good job of getting us everywhere and staying on track.

The first stop was Thingvellir National Park. You could stand on both the North American and Euro-Asian sides. We had about 45 minutes this site.

Next, we were off to Geysir. Geysir erupts every few minutes, shooting boiling water. We were able to get a couple of photos and then run to grab lunch. We had a little time in the shops too. Lunch (4 hamburgers, three drinks, and two fries were about $64).

Gullfoss Waterfall was our next stop. You could walk right up to the edge of the waterfall, which was beautiful – that would never be allowed in the USA! However, it was quite the climb to the lookout and then back up the stairs to parking. I earned the Ferris Wheel badge on my Fitbit today for 75 floors! It was then that I thought I might die and not make it back to the minibus. I did take a couple of breaks on my journey.

After the waterfall, we were taken to a “secret lagoon”. We had 1.5 hours here to relax. There were clean dressing rooms and lockers. Pool noodles were available for use, but only as a comfort item, the lagoon was not that deep (approximately five foot), and you could see all the way to the bottom. I made a floaty and got a little bit of a sunburn as we had a gorgeous sunny day. Ice cream, drinks, and food were also available here. The lagoon had very few visitors – maybe 30, and 20 of those were from our tour. This tour was 9 hours total, but most of it was in the van.

After dinner, we went to Fathoms for a Pop Culture Quiz and 80’s music trivia contest, where my husband and Josh lost their minds and were having a great time. Will and I were almost doubled-over laughing the whole time. I am sorry I didn’t think to video tape it, but I was laughing too hard even to think about it. That really would have been excellent blackmail material!  The crowd was pretty small as we were overnighting in Reykjavik and many were out enjoying the evening.

We had a long, but very enjoyable day. Tomorrow we will see more sites of Reykjavik!