Gullfoss Waterfall, Iceland

Today I took the 9 hour Golden Circle Tour which incorporates several beautiful sights not far from Reykjavik.  Thankfully the weather was much improved from yesterday and I finally got to see the mountains of the Reykjavik area!  It was a beautiful drive to Pingvellir National Park, site of the Icelandic Parliament until 1798.  It also encompasses the divide between the American and the European tectonic plates which are separating by 2cm per year, creating a rift valley in between.  

From there we went to Geysir Geothermal Field and watched the geyser Strokkur which erupts every few minutes.    

Not far from Geysir is the Gullfoss Waterfall, by far my favourite stop of the day.  I'd seen many pictures of Gullfoss but nothing prepared me for the beauty of the waterfall in the semi-frozen state.  I got a few pictures but then my iPhone died/ran out of battery.  Silly me - I have two spare battery packs but I had forgotten to bring them with me. Part of the problem was that the iPhone tends to switch off when it gets too cold and it WAS cold today!  

Our last stop was at Laugarvatn where we spent a couple of hours at the Fontana Geothermal Baths.  There are several pools ranging from 32-38 C.  For those who are really brave, they can alternate between the cold lake and the natural hot spring pools.  Needless to say, I wasn't one of the brave ones and only went in the various hot pools!  One of the things they do here is cook the Icelandic Rye bread (Rugbrauð) which is traditionally cooked in pots buried in the ground near the geothermal spring.  These pots are buried for 24 hours.  We were able to watch them dig out the pot from yesterday and then bury the new pot for today.  Once retrieved from the earth, the bread was sliced up and served to us with lashings of icelandic butter.  Very delicious!  

For more pictures of my day, check out my Flickr album