Golden Circle, Iceland

Breakfast, then an all-day tour. This was the first organized tour that I think I have ever taken in my life. The Golden circle with four stops: Frioheimar greenhouse, Geysir Geothermal Area, Gullfoss Waterfall, and the Thingvellir National Park.

The Frioheimar greenhouse is an interesting tomato greenhouse operation. Using steam and hydropower they grow 350 tons of tomatoes a year, about 18% of the Icelandic market. They use steam to heat the place and run grow lights 10 to 19 hours a day. Plus they tap the CO2 and feed it to the plants. Fucking amazing. After leaving there I started noticing the greenhouses everywhere. They were growing strawberries, cucumbers, lettuce, and a lot of produce.

It is interesting how far Iceland has come in the past 100 years. As our tour guide that day said, until 100 years ago, the island was still in the Viking age. They didn’t have many machines until around the 1900s.

The tour guide had a lot of interesting takes. Especially on the tourists. Like that one-third of the rental cars get trashed. Or that they want to flood out a bunch of farmers to build a new hydro-power plant. She was a little preachy at times.

The next stop was the Geysir Geothermal Area. It was also the lunch stop. This was okay. Small, and I thought we spent a little too much time there. I would rather have spent more time later on at Thingvellir National Park. After seeing Yellowstone, a bit of a letdown, and not enough time to explore.
The gift shop slash restaurant area was really what I think they were trying to get us to spend money on. We brought packaged sandwiches and got soup and coffee there. We weren’t supposed to bring in other food. What? Couldn’t read the sign. Oh, it’s in English too.

Gullfoss. Our third stop of the day. This is and one iconic waterfall of Iceland. It’s also super crowded. I can not imagine how bad it is in the summer. It was cold, wet, and windy when we were there. But still amazing. You can feel the ground vibrate under you from the sheer amount and force of the water going through the falls. It was a bit icy and dicey with the mist and the cold temps. Part of the path was icing up. Added to the adventure!

The last stop was Thingvellir National Park. This was the place I wish we had spent more time. There were a lot of places to explore and a lot of paths. So they dropped us off at one side and we could all walk to where the bus would pick us back up. So we had a short time limit. It was a quick dash to the other side. It really wasn’t that far. We could have run to the pickup spot in 10 minutes.

But it was awesome. We got to walk along the edge of the Eurasian tectonic plate. The national park is where the fault line comes up out of the ocean and cuts across the island. In the middle is the largest lake in Iceland. On the other side is the North American plate. The land is dropping where the two plates are moving away from each other. At one spot they had to build a walkover because the trail sank away!

The tour was ok. It was nice not to drive. But I did feel that I could have found better things getting a car. But it was great to learn how fresh food is grown all year round. Could have spent a little more time outside.