Icelandic Nibbles, Sites and Strolls

On a laid back November evening, we suddenly decided to spend Christmas in Reykjavik, Iceland!

Me: Brazilian woman who grew up in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Monza (Italy). Hate being cold but somehow loves ice-skating and snow boarding.
Him: American man who grew up in Miami (ahem, tropical Miami). Also dislikes cold but tolerates it better than his wife.

So...on a laid back November evening, two LUNATICS decided to go to Iceland at the end of December with less than a month to plan. We went. It was cold. It was white and covered in snow. It was also an utterly fantastic trip and we cannot wait to go back!

Once the decision was made, I went into my usual process of getting things lined up. I start watching flight prices on catch-all websites like Kayak.com. I'll set up alerts but also do random checks every day. What I have found, if you're trying to get a good deal, is that flights cost less (for who knows what reason?) if you buy them midweek. It's also cheaper to fly on weekdays than weekends. While on this process, a co-worker told me about Skyscanner. This changed everything!

Skyscanner, much like Kayak, is a global meta-search engine but seems to find much better deals. It also has a cool search feature with which you can set your origin airport and flexible dates but show flights to anywhere. If you're the adventurous type, this is for you! For this trip, thanks to skyscanner we booked flights to Reykjavik for about $500/person and a good hotel for 6 nights for a total cost of about $600.

The flight was a non-stop, 6 hour flight from BWI to KEF on WOW air. The downside is that WOW air is an economy airline and if you want to take a normal sized carry on, check in a suitcase, select your own seats and eat/drink airplane foodstuff, you will have to pay many bucks. Actually, I was surprised they didn't charge for use of the bathroom. No joke. I don't want to focus too much on the negatives but I do think that this is something you need to consider when purchasing a cheap ticket on an economy airline and you need to be okay with it. We were sort of okay with it.

For the hotel (Hótel Ísland), it's sort of the same deal. It wasn't the cheapest or the closest to city center but it was decent and clean. Honestly, we were booking pretty late so other alternatives were not available. We were lucky to find this 3-star hotel and it was awesome to have a pretty good daily breakfast buffet for free!

For the rest of the trip planning, well, that's it. I found some cool pins on Pinterest and one of our travel blogger friends sent tips (you can see her stuff here). Another friend sent us a spreadsheet she made from one of her previous trips. We also had an Iceland Travel guide and a map from my parents-in-law. That's it. In general, I feel pretty good so long as I have secured a round-trip flight and have a comfy place to lay my head down! Do book your free walking tour of Reykjavik ahead of time as these fill out fast! You can do it here.

Another thing you have to book ahead of time is a trip to the Blue Lagoon, if that's your thing. We weren't convinced because we thought it'd be mobbed with tourists but we missed our chance! Regardless, there are other, cheaper alternatives that the locals prefer to use. We didn't do it this time but it is on the list for the next trip.

So we packed our long underwear and off we went! Below are some trip highlights and planning advice for your trip to Reykjavik!

Getting around - After landing and clearing Immigrations, the first thing you see is the bus counters (gray line and flybus). Flybus was open when we got there so we booked a one way trip with them to take us to the hotel. We now know that it was worth booking the round-trip and saving some bucks. Unless you are renting a car, this is the cheapest alternative. It takes about 45 minutes. If the weather is nice, you get a great view of the lava fields. For the rest of the time, we walked everywhere as Reykjavik is not very big. There are public buses but you have to have exact change and might be waiting a while.

Food - After settling in at the hotel, we walked to city center on the lookout for some food and realized that food and drink in Iceland is horribly expensive (I knew it'd be costly but this exceeded my expectations). That said, we found some excellent affordable food with a little searching. Our first icelandic meal was the hearty Beef Noodle Soup at the Noodle Station. We also had a fantastic lunch at a place called Bergsson Mathus, a farm to table restaurant offering a small menu with fresh, traditional and seasonal food. 

Beef Noodle soup at Noodle Station

Huge portion for lunch at Bergsson Mathus

Cheesecake for dessert!

We did splurge on one meal at Old Iceland Restaurant, which was incredibly worth-while. We happened to catch a glimpse of a note saying "One table left" on the door of the restaurant while walking around on Christmas Eve. The thing is that Christmas is a really big deal in Iceland and almost everything is closed on the 25th/26th of December while all the restaurants are booked on the 24th. We got lucky. The food was incredible, the staff amazing and the ambiance made for a memorable dinner (our first Christmas eve as a married couple!).

Old Iceland 4-course menu for Christmas Eve.

A couple of interesting coffee spots were Reykjavik Roasters and Babalu but do not expect the coffee to knock your socks off! At Babalu, the bathroom that is completely decked out in StarWars mode probably will knock your socks off.

For drinks, we really enjoyed finding the Mikkeler & Friends, which we were already familiar with from our trip to Denmark.

The colorful Mikkeler & Friends

Tours - as I said earlier, we booked our City Walk tour ahead of time. We met our guide, Eric, at the park in front of the parliament building and he gave us a fantastic tour. He's a history graduate student in town and focused on a lot of details on icelandic history, heritage and culture. He was also very funny and engaging to both adults and kids. While the tour is "free", you're encouraged to give a donation to your guide. We thought it was well worth it (about 3 hours packed with information) and highly recommend signing up.

A fun fact Eric told us during the tour is that all Icelandic names are on an approved list of names. If you want to name your baby something that isn't on the list, you need to send an application to have the name reviewed for its fit with Icelandic tradition! 

Since we knew everything would be closed on the 25th, we booked a 6 hour tour of the Golden Circle with Reykjavik Excursions (these guys also run the Flybus service). The weather wasn't great and we did spend a lot of time on the bus but the guide did a great job of telling us interesting facts and pointing out places we were passing by. Our stops at Gullfoss (waterfalls), Geysir (yup and very active) & Þingvellir (park with a giant crack on earth) were 100% worth the time spent on the bus! If you go to these places though, be prepared to spend time in a mob of other tourists as they are popular sights.

Walking into a crack on earth!

    

 The Geysir goes off very frequently but impossible to tell when. 

Gulfoss Waterfall!

Museums - The downlow on museums is that they are not cheap and can be sort of small and underwhelming. We went to the Settlement Museum, which was mildly interesting but small and the Reykjavik Art Museum (we like modern art but the exhibits seemed unnecessarily too weird). The highlight for me was an evening snow romp around the grounds of Asmundarsafn. We couldn't go when it was open because we ran out of time but the building is architecturally interesting and the sculptures are gorgeous!

Asmundarsafn Building

Museum Sculpture Garden

Other city sights - We also stopped at the Sun Voyager, a sculpture by the famous Jón Gunnar Árnason, and spent a lot of time inside of the warmth at the Harpa Concert Hall. Other free sites worth stopping at were the City Hall and Hallgrimskirkja church (going to the top of the tower does have an admission fee though).

Sun Voyager Sculpture with an amazing view

Hallgrimskikja at night

View of Harpa Concert Hall from Thufa

Inside of Harpa

The best view of the city was from this quirky sculpture called Thufa. It's off the harbor and quite a long walk but well worth it. The sun rays you see in the pictures are the most we saw of the sun. We don't know why Thufa is or why there is a tiny closet on top of it, which seems to be a fish smoker but we think Thufa is pretty cool and that's that!

The Mound (i.e. Thufa)

Real fish in a real smoker

We saved walking to Perlan for a different day and I am so glad that we never let snow/cold weather deter us because the view was incredible, aside from the incredible architecture of the building. Perlan is a glass dome with a spinning restaurant (fancy! we ate at the cafeteria) that has 360 views and is perched on 5 water tanks supplying the city of Reykjavik. You get to see both the city and the surrounding country side. I would have loved to go there on a night that the Aurora Borealis is visible but we were not that lucky with the weather. If you, like me, are also chomping at the bit to see the Aurora in Iceland, you should keep this handy forecast in your back pocket!

Hidden Gems -  Apparently, when Chris travels he feels the need to find the cool barber in town to cut his hair. This time, we kept passing by Quest Saloon, which has a fully stocked bar focusing on Whisky. We popped in there but the barber was fully booked so we drank instead. The woman manning the bar was awesome. She's super knowledgeable and friendly. We talked for a while about the local breweries and distilleries, including Bryggjan Brugghus (highly recommend beer #14) and Eimverk (we tasted Floki but it's still very young as far as whisky goes. It'll be great when it ages a little). She also gave us a heads up on a Beer Spa that will be opening in the north of Iceland (story is here), where you get to bathe in a mix of beer, water, hops and yeast. It seems this makes your skin feel amazing. Going there is now one of Chris' life goals.

No.14

Floki Tasting

Impressive Whisky Selection at Quest.

Another hidden gem is OmNom. You will see OmNom chocolate bars everywhere you go. We saw the bars in stores and were immediately drawn to them because of the original packaging. We chose to step into the tiny store in city center instead of buying the chocolate in big stores and, boy, was it a good decision. We got to taste the chocolate and we got to meet Kyle, the guy that makes it! Kyle is a cool guy with an interesting, mixed cultural background (like me!), who is seriously friendly and makes a fantastic product. We couldn't do a tour of the larger facility because of holiday closings but definitely want to try next time we're there! We felt very lucky to meet him.

Our very delicious OmNoms!

For the next time - We definitely want to go back, preferably in better weather but with enough darkness to see the Aurora Borealis. We would not have been comfortable renting a car in the weather conditions we had but in the spring or fall, it should be okay to have a car and drive the Ring Road, circumventing the whole island. We want to go to the less famous but equally gorgeous Largauvatn Hot Springs, see Fjords and check out some Glaciers and Volcanos. We saw a perfectly white Iceland and found it immensely beautiful. I can only imagine the gorgeousness that will be revealed when some it melts away.

BOOM! First serious blog post published. That was hard, guys, but I'm glad it's all out there! 

I hope you'll hang out to see what comes out next!

First, The Ground Rules and What to Expect

It has taken me quite some time to decide whether or not to start writing a blog. This page was, in fact, created over a year ago and it's sat empty until now. The truth is that, in this age of connection and high internet visibility, the idea of sharing my thoughts and opinions was a bit scary and overwhelming. To further complicate the story, this last year has been one of great transition with the start of a new job, a move to a new place after being settled in Charlottesville for 17 years and a slightly offbeat wedding to my partner in crime in what has so far been one of the happiest days of my life. 

That said, I am who I am and that is a strongly independent, opinionated woman, who likes to share experiences and advice. I hope that this will be a tool to organize the thoughts in my head but also a good way to connect with other interesting people and spur healthy discussions. You can expect to see a little bit of everything here. I will share recipes, attempts at being fashionable (yikes!), travel adventures, random musings. 

Full disclosure, I do not want this to become a forum of negativeness so I will not tolerate any aggression, negative attacks on my person or others that chose to share an opinion here. Anything that gets posted in an unkind manner will be promptly deleted/blocked. It's okay to have an opposing view and express it, of course but only if it is done so in a thoughtful, kind manner with the awareness that everyone is entitled to their own views.

I very much believe in kindness and I hope that anyone who comes across this blog would so as well. 

Let's see where this goes!

Cheers!

Bananachikita