Our objective today was the Gullfoss waterfall. Along the way, we stopped at Thingvellir National Park. We had gotten a late start, so we didn’t have a lot of time to spend there. We mainly stayed around the visitor center and enjoyed the views. After 30 minutes or so, we proceeded to Gullfoss. Interesting fact, “foss” in Icelandic actually means “waterfall.”
Gullfoss was a massive waterfall that ran across a flat triangle-shaped plateau before plummeting to the ravine below. The noise was deafening and the spray reached us even up on the very top platform. It was freezing and windy along the observation deck, not to mention extremely crowded, so we didn’t stay for very long.
After some quick shopping for souvenirs, we headed down the road to see Geysir (pronounced gay-seer), a geyser that supposedly was taller than Old Faithful. We quickly learned that though it may be taller than Old Faithful, it was not as reliable. It only explodes after an earthquake, the last time being over a decade ago. So, we resigned ourselves to the smaller ? geyser, which exploded every 4-8 minutes.
The daylight was fading quickly, but we could still make out the geyser eruption in the darkening gloom. We watched it erupt several times, enjoying the build-up of churning water right before it did its thing. As the darkness descended completely upon us, we grabbed a quick hot chocolate and then headed back to Reykjavík.
We were delighted to find that my wife’s suitcase had arrived at the hotel by the time we got there. She was so relieved to finally have her stuff, that she immediately took a shower just so she could use everything. After that, we grabbed diner at Hresso’s, hoping to get some good fish and chips. Instead, we got some okay fish and potatoes (not fries). Wouldn’t recommend it.
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