Festarfjall

We wake up to a grey and rainy morning. After breakfast we go back to our room to prepare our route through the city. Most of the highlights are not that far apart so we can connect them on foot. Only a museum, Perlan, is a bit further out of town. It consists of 6 water circular tanks that are nowadays exhibitions rooms. From the roof you have a nice view of the city. We decide to first finish all the landmarks in the city and before going to the volcano stop by Perlan.

Our first stop is the city hall which is located near a lake and the entrance has a walkway over the water. It looks very nice, although a lot of birds like the walkway as well to rest. Most of the railing and floor is full of bird poop.
Inside the city hall, there’s an 80m² replica of Iceland. Everything looks modern and the model is impressive. A bureau worked for several years on it and every hill or mountain is made up out of different layers of what looked like plaster. Almost like the whole model is 3D-printed. It’s amazingly detailed and we can trace back most of our route. They even thought of the practical aspect and can roll the entire model in a cabinet in the wall of the room in case it’s needed for an event.

After the city hall we continue towards the harbour. We pass some cool artwork that serves public use like little seats made out of rotor blades of a ship or a bicycle stand from anker chain. The idea was to walk around the harbour to Thufa, an artificial hill at the seaside of the harbour. The docks and wharfs keep showing up in front of us and we realise this is actually a pretty big harbour. Or at least, it takes a while to walk around. With some occasional rain and strong wind, we hope we’ll arrive there quickly.

Thufa itself isn’t that spectacular. It’s a perfectly shaped spheric grass hill with a tiny hut on top. We reach the top by a path that swings around the hill and gradually climbs. In the tiny hut on top there’s dried cod hanging from ropes. We do get a nice view over the harbour and the city of Reykjavik with the modern Harpa building just across and the famous church tower raising above all of Reykjavik.

Since the way back to the hotel is quite a walk, we plan to take one of the electric steps that we saw all around town. Of course, turns out that they are not that popular in the harbour area. So, in the end we ended up walking the whole way back to the hotel.

After a short rest we looked up the latest information about the volcano. Is the weather okay? Is the volcano active today? Where to park? Which trails are still available? Having sorted out most of the information we pick up the car and drive to Perlan.
When we arrive to the museum it looks like a really immersive and interactive place. There is even a live ice cave of minus 10 degrees! At one point, we doubted if we would buy a ticket for the exhibitions, but then decided that we wouldn’t have the time. We quickly made our way to the top to go to the viewing terrace. Perlan is very close to Reykjavik airport which mainly serves smaller aircraft as the big hub is located at Keflavik. We have a look around and drink a coffee at the rooftop bar.

It's a bit after noon when we drive to the active volcano in Geldingadalir. From the highway we can already spot a cloud above a mountain, but we’re still a bit unsure if it’s smoke from the volcano or just a cloud. Not much later we can clearly see it’s smoke coming from the mountain!
When we arrive at the parking lot, we’re lucky to find a free spot. The government has opened various parking lots in the area to accommodate the high number of locals and tourists. Most of these area are full of cars. According to a sign at the beginning of the trail we have to pay a parking fee here as well. Just like in Snaefellsness we try the website, but our bank app requires us to verify the transaction with a card reader and the card itself. The parking fee itself was also higher than anything we’ve seen before, so that’s maybe the drawback from higher prices: people can’t just pay them quickly with their mobile.
We decide to take the trail that leads up the volcano to where you can see the crater. There was another trail that takes you closer to the lava, but then you don’t see the crater. We hope to see some activity, so we decide to go on the long route.
From the road we caught a glimpse of red flowing lava. Already amazed by this sighting we were hoping we would still see something similar.
Not too far into the trail we spot similar fresh red flowing lava streams over the older black hardened lava. It’s an incredible sight!
After around 5-10 minutes we arrive at the bottom of the lava. It’s black, full of little stones and every now and then it’s still smoking. Despite the various warnings online we still spot people walking on the lava… It’s unbelievable how stupid some people are.
After having seen the hardened lava from up close, it’s time to start our steep climb to the crater. The higher we climb, the better the view becomes and the more you get a sense of magnitude on what this volcano already erupted. In fact, two days ago there was another trail that just went to the bottom of the lava flow. As of yesterday, the trail closed because the lava had come further down and destroyed the track.
The path up is steep and we don’t advance very fast. Every time the red glare in the fresh lava changes, we stop to take a picture. The temperature of this stuff is insane and can reach above 1000°C. It’s no surprise that when a stream of red lava reaches the sand and vegetation it immediately sets ablaze everything on its path.
At a certain point we lose the cover of a nearby hill and the wind picks up fiercely. It’s cold and especially hard to take any good pictures. Because the crater and lava are far away, we need to use our telescopic lenses to the maximum and the wind doesn’t help the stability of the shot. Even on a tripod the camera gets shaken around too much to take a good picture. We see the crater in the distance, and every now and then there’s some more smoke coming out of it. The edges of the crater are full of colours, especially yellow and green like we saw earlier at various places with high geothermal activity. We stick around, take a lot of pictures and enjoy being at such an unreal place. Because we don’t think the view on the crater itself will get much better, we retrace our steps downhill to the car. Unfortunately, there’s no more time to do the other trail that gets closer to the glowing lava.

On our way back to Reykjavik we stop at a gas station to clean our car. Some gas stations have free to use self-carwash which is very practical. Our car has been stationary for the last couple of days and had seen some rain. However, the dirt from the last weeks didn’t really wash off by itself. Therefore, in order to prevent an extra fine by the rental company for not being able to inspect the vehicle upon return, we gave it a quick wash ourselves. Back in Reykjavik we do some souvenir shopping and have dinner in a cosy restaurant in the shopping street. Ann has a classic traditional Icelandic dish for her last night: lamb. You cannot leave Iceland without having tasted at least one of their famous dishes. Satisfied we went to the volcano, we go to bed. The next morning will be painful as we need to get up early to catch our flight back to Brussels.Read more