Another Iceland post by guest writer and sister, Mary Wagner. You can read Mary's first post here.
This is definitely NOT the usual fare for this blog: Iceland in December and January! But there are still good reasons to visit. If you love Christmas, it's about as Christmassy as it gets, with lights, decorations, festivities, stories, masses in their historic Churches. One Icelandic custom is to give books for Christmas Eve gifts, then on Christmas Day everyone stays home in their pajamas, drinks cocoa, and reads. So perhaps the actual week of Christmas isn't the best time to visit, but the weeks prior and after can be pretty amazing.
This trip we took in two lighthouses, Akranesviti and Grottaviti. We arrived at Akranes at sunrise of our first morning, which by the way was 11:11 AM, and watched the clouds changing color over the bay and Reykjavik in the distance. The Akranes lighthouse is open for climbing, and has the only non-spiral staircase I've ever seen in a lighthouse. There are actually two lighthouses on that landspit. The smaller structure is the original lighthouse, built in 1918. As you walk from the visitor center to the lighthouses, you pass the racks for drying fish, as Akranes is an old fishing village, and in the air you will catch a faint whiff of smoking fish.
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| Akranes Lighthouse |
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| Old Akranes Lighthouse |
Close to Akranesviti is the town's local rec center, with modern swimming complex, soccer field, indoor golf facility, and just down by the beach from it, is the Gudlaug swimming pool, a multilevel hot tub overlooking the black sand beach and ocean. You can scamper down into the water and back into the infinity pool for a tingly invigorating/exhilarating Nordic experience. Outdoor geothermal pools are a huge thing in Iceland, almost every hotel has a spa/hot tub complex, as well as the many various natural hot springs, some of which you can bathe in, and some of which you need to keep a healthy distance from.
We visited the Sturlureykir horse farm, which is heated by such a hot spring and has belonged to its current family in residence since 1886. It has its own little mini-geyser, and the resulting hot water is piped into and under the stables and home for heating, and into a little in-ground bake oven where they bake/steam the most delicious rye bread/cake that they offer to visitors. They offer riding, but we opted just to visit the beautiful friendly shaggy curious horses which they have been breeding there since 1886, admire the wall of trophies earned by their horses, and pet the dogs who came up for ear skritches and belly rubs. For non-riding visits, no reservations are required, just show up.
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| "What has it got in its pocketses?" |
Sturlureykir horse farm is near the village of Reykholt, about a 90-minute drive from the capital of Reykjavik. We stayed in the very comfortable Fosshotel there, where we could see the Aurora Borealis from our window the first night, and where we spent two hours in their gorgeous spa the second night. The village has some historical significance, as Snorri Sturluson the 12th century poet/historian/political leader/ambassador retired there, and some of the remains of his life there have been preserved, such as his bathing pool. The Snorri was my favorite of the three cocktails I sampled at the hotel restaurant, which also served amazing food, especially the baked brie made from local milk and served with honey, nuts, and apples. Oh, and the Arctic char, which is a delicious freshwater salmon'ish fish. The first night we had entrees, the second night we enjoyed a variety of appetizers, aka Icelandic tapas.
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| the Snorri Sturluson |
After two nights in Reykholt we made our way to Reykjavik for their 13th day of Christmas festivities, primarily the bonfires and fireworks, which were all spread along a snowy beachfront park. Fire and Ice indeed!
As we walked down to the park after another delicious Icelandic tapas dinner (I'm still remembering the smoked salmon), we fell in with the huge crowd headed that direction, children with sparklers, adults carrying torches. It felt so classically Icelandic. Burn away any sorrows of the past year, so you can start afresh!
For our final day, we visited the Maritime Museum by our hotel, and then on to the lighthouse. Grottaviti is on a spit of land projecting from the city of Reykjavik, and is a popular walking trail and local Aurora Borealis viewing point, as it gets far enough from the city lights for a dark sky. You can't climb this lighthouse, and you do have to watch for tides, as the narrow path to the lighthouse goes underwater at high tide. From the lighthouse, you have great views across the waves of the bay to the projecting points of Akranes and Borgarnes, and if the sky is clear enough, north to the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Speaking of which, we visited that peninsula, but due to the very short day, we only got halfway to the national park and lighthouses on the far western end of it (next time!). But we did have a good stop at the Ytri Tunga seal beach and watched the grey and harbor seals splashing each other there.
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| Grotta Lighthouse |
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| Snaefellsnes Peninsula |
Iceland in winter: So yes sunrise isn't until 11 or thereabouts, but they have a long lovely dawn that starts around 9:30. And sunset is around 3:45 but they have a long lovely dusk that goes until around 5:30. You have to play around with your photography filters, but the light is just gorgeous, like an all-day magic hour. It does tend to be cloudy, but on sunny days the white landscape creates its own light as well. There's really no bad time of year to visit Iceland, it's all about what magic you personally are looking for!
Travel tips: Iceland is extremely tourism-friendly. You can get shuttles into Reykjavik and then take day trip tours. You can take longer guided tours - we ran into two different tour groups who were staying at our hotel in Reykholt. You can do self-driving tours where the travel agencies set up everything for you. You can just book all your own stuff online, which is very easy to do. If you choose to drive yourself, make sure that you acclimatize yourself with their driving rules. They do drive on the right side of the road so that's easy. Winter driving requires 4WD and studded tires and paying attention to road safety conditions, so it's definitely not for everyone!
https://grapevine.is/news/2019/01/08/akranes-lighthouse-one-of-best-travel-discoveries-of-2018-guardian-readers-say/
https://totaliceland.com/visiting-grotta-island-iceland-timing-everything/
https://www.west.is/en/service/sturlureykirhorses-visiting-horsefarm
https://www.whatson.is/the-last-day-of-christmas-threttandinn/
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