How to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Iceland and complete one day Golden Circle Drive in Winter. This is part of a 10 days trip in Iceland. Follow my posts to read the entire journey!
Winter driving in Iceland? Only 4 hours of daylight per day? And only have 10 days including New Year’s eve and day? Yes, it’s all possible with proper planning. It took us 2-3 weeks of full detailed research on Iceland to come up with our itinerary. It was extremely tough to plan considering the shortage of time to drive the entire ring road and the limited accommodation available (we only booked 1 month before the trip and it’s New Year’s period so almost all hotels are either fully booked or extremely pricey).
Here’s a summary our 10 days itinerary:
Day 1: Arrive in Iceland from Copenhagen early evening, pick up car from the airport, overnight stay in Hotel Kirunes in Kópavogur.
Day 2: Check out of Hotel Kirunes, complete the Golden Circle, overnight in Tower Suite Reykjavik
Day 3: Explore Reykjavik town, New Year count down at main town square, over night in First Hotel Kópavogur as there are completely no hotels in Reykjavik
Day 4: Drive towards Grundarfijorour, stopped by Snæfellsjökull Volcano, overnight in Dis Cottage
Day 5: Longest drive of the trip, from west Iceland drive towards Akureyri. Total drive time around 5 hours. Overnight in G19 Boutique Apartments.
Day 6: Explore Akureyri in the morning, explore Godafoss, stop by Mývatn Nature Baths for a soak, continue driving towards Seyðisfjörður town. Overnight in Gamli Skoli apartment.
Day 7: Short exploring of Seyðisfjörður town in the morning, explore Gufu waterfall, stop over Djupivogur Lighthouse then head towards Hofn. Stay one night in Milk Factory hotel.
Day 8: Head to diamond beach, drive to Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon for Ice Cave tour. Overnight in Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon.
Day 9: Drive to Vik, explore black sand beach, check in Ion Adventure hotel in Thingvellir (Þingvellir) National Park.
Day 10: Drive to Blue Lagoon after checking out. Last night dinner in Blue Lagoon, return the car, overnight in B&B Keflavik Airport Hotel.
Day 11: Early morning 7am flight depart back to Stockholm.
I’ll start with day 1 to 3 in the first part of this blog entry. We arrive late at Hotel Kirunes and it’s way past dinner time. The hotel was so kind to ask the kitchen to prepare some soup and sandwich which was delicious. I’m not sure whether we were too hungry, but it tasted amazing and it’s our first time tasting Icelandic butter and hummus which we were immediately hooked. The texture of the butter and hummus were extremely creamy and sweet, which tasted very different from the usual we ate around the rest of the world.
stay:
Hotel Kirunes
Our jaw dropped when we opened the door to our room. We weren’t expecting such a huge suite. This room was beautifully decorated with artefacts on the wall, including a reindeer head. We were told that this is the room the hotel used to give presentation to important guests.
What a wonderful start to our journey in Iceland. Because we arrived so late at night after the flight, we were too tired to take proper photos of the room so, here’s some random video I took when I first enter the room. I would highly recommend staying here for at least one night. Hotel Kirunes is such a cosy hotel filled with so much warmth hospitality.
The next day, we checked out right before sunrise so that we can reach the Golden Circle Ring road when the sun starts to rise. The drive from town to Golden Circle Road is fairly easy and fast. There are road signs everywhere and basically there’s only one main road to follow. The drive from Reykjavik to our first location in the Golden Circle takes around 50 minutes.
drive:
50 mins
The drive from Reykjavik to our first stop on the Golden Circle is about 47km which takes less than an hour to reach.
1st stop:
Thingvellir
Our first stop is Thingvellir (Þingvellir) national park which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site with historical, cultural, and geological importance in Iceland. This place is perhaps one of the most visited site in Iceland, and this is park is where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meets. At Þingvellir you can see how the two continental plates drift apart. Iceland is one of the rare places in the world where you can see the plates drifting apart on dry land.
to do:
Have fun!
Standing in front of Öxaráfoss waterfall (The waterfall in the Ax River) after following a supposedly wooden footpath which is covered with snow. As there are snow and ice everywhere, it gets a little slippery but never dampen my spirit for some fun and smiles.
We parked our car at the national part entrance (free parking) and follow the clear foot path towards Öxaráfoss waterfall (The waterfall in the Ax River). Before reaching Öxaráfoss, we saw another smaller waterfall and we continue walking another 10 minutes to reach Öxaráfoss. The path continues further but we decided to save time for other sights on the Golden Cirlce. Öxaráfoss waterfall is situated in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and it’s actually man made. The Vikings had moved it to current location so it is more suitable for their Alþingi parliament meetings. It’s still a beautiful waterfall that you can’t miss if you are in Thingsvellir national park.
shop:
My Winter style
Shop my other picks
2nd stop : Gullfoss it’s a first time experience of
being almost blown away by the wind
does it gets anymore fun than this?
Next stop, we head towards Gullfoss (translated to ‘Golden Falls’). The water in Hvítá river travels from the glacier Langjökull, before cascading 32 meters (105 feet) down Gullfoss’ two stages in a dramatic display of nature’s raw power.
Everyone knows that the weather in Iceland is notoriously unpredictable. When we reached Gullfoss, the strong wind has picked up and the rain hitting hard. It’s a challenge just to walk towards the platform to view the waterfall. Yuni and I need to hold onto each other to prevent from being blown off balance by the wind. The rain hits so hard that it felt almost like ice pellets. We are too uncomfortable to figure out whether it’s rain or ice pellets but it sure hurts when it hits our faces. We are walking against the wind, holding each other for dear life and wondering what in the world are we doing?? Walking in this kind of weather. But we are racing against sunset time. It’s another hour before the sun starts to set, so we need to just take a peek at this famous waterfall before we continue the journey. With such bad weather, our photo of Gullfoss is a little blurry, but you can still observe the 2 stages of water falls.
3rd & final stop:
The Great Geysir
Gullfoss and The Great Geysir are very near each other. We have decided our last location to be Haukadalur geothermal area where there are two geysers: Geysir and Strokkur. By right, if we follow the road, we would have reached here first before Gullfoss but we decided that in case the sun sets earlier due to the rain, we prioritized Gullfoss over the geysers. But we are happy to managed to visit both, or rather 3 of the most visited sites on the Golden Circle road.
We did saw the geyser erupt into the sky but didn’t managed to capture it on photo or video. The weather is getting onto us so we did not bother to wait for the second erpution. We are already dripping wet from the splashing rain. If you want to look like a clown, you can attempt to use an umbrella, which eventually, the strong wind will break the umbrella. Even if the umbrella is not broken, the rain comes from everywhere, there’s no way to seek shelter under a tiny overhead cover.
There is a nice visitor center serving food and drinks plus a huge store selling clothes and tourist stuff just next to the car park. It was already 3.30pm and we skipped lunch, so this is our refuge place for warm food and away from the fierce weather.
Since this is only day 2 in Iceland, we haven’t got accustomed to the prices. I was shocked that a simple bowl of clear chicken soup with a side of bread cost me SGD25 (USD19). There isn’t much ingredients in the soup except for a few pieces of carrots, potatoes and chicken bits. Usually, I would be able to get a decent main course with this price, but yes, we are all heard, Iceland is expensive.
We ended our 2nd night in Iceland at a restaurant that came highly recommended by the service staff from two hotels in Iceland: Tapas Barinn. Are we glad we book a table because the place is not just crowded but running an extreme full house. We heard them turning away customers if they do not have a booking. Perhaps this was because it’s the night before New Year’s Eve or this restaurant is always this crowded. Even with our booking, we need to wait for a while for them to clear the table.
We would have thought this is a Spanish Tapas restaurant given the name, but when we looked through the menu, there is nothing about Spanish cuisine or anything that looked like the usual Tapas. It’s more like this restaurant served quite a few starter dishes if we want to try the various Icelandic food. Feeling adventurous, we ordered the Icelandic Gourmet Feast menu. These is what we ate:
to eat:
Tapas Barinn
- Grilled beef as hors d’euvre
- Smoked puffin with blueberry “brennivín” sauce
- Icelandic arctic char with candy beets salad, asparagus and elderflower-hollandaise
- Lobster tails baked in garlic
- Pan-fried blue ling with lobster sauce
- Grilled Icelandic lamb tenderloin with beer-butterscotch sauce
- Minke Whale with sweet potato mash and malt sauce
- White chocolate “Skyr” mousse with passion coulis for dessert
Dinner was really amazing in Tapas Barinn. If it’s your first time in Iceland, you should come here at least once to try the different Icelandic food. We were so stuffed after the 8 course meal. The damage for the set is around SGD100 (USD80) which is very reasonable for Iceland. After dinner, we retire at the beautiful Tower Suites Reykjavik which you can read more of this tallest accommodation in Iceland in this post. This ends our day 2.
3rd day : New Year’s Eve & Harpa Concert Hall
Day 3, we were still in Reykjavik as we wanted to count down to the New Year in town. Today, we spent the hours of daylights exploring the Reykjavik city. We thought it’s tiny but in fact, there were quite a number of places to visit. We have limited time so we picked Harpa Concert Hall as the main attraction to visit for the day. This is located a stone’s throw away from our hotel, Tower Suites Reykjavik, next to the harbour. Then we went to the main street where the famous Hallgrímskirkja church stands. It’s the tallest church in Iceland, with it’s design based on the basalt formation that can seen on Iceland’s coastline. Tea time was a stop at a crepes and ice cream shop. Strangely, I always crave for ice cream during winter.
New Year’s eve dinner for us was a disaster. I didn’t book like the night before and we couldn’t eat at any restaurant. Everywhere was full house, I practically walked down the street asking every restaurant whether there are tables for us but in vain. We ended up in a Chinese restaurant eating the “typical western chinese style food” for dinner. (sorry I didn’t have a picture to show as we were just too tired and hungry)
Of course, New Year eve’s celebration will never be short of fireworks and we found out that fireworks in Iceland is a grand affair. Before coming to Iceland to celebrate New Year’s eve, I didn’t make any research and was hunting and asking locals where to see fireworks. Never did I realize, the fireworks in Iceland are put on by the locals, not the government or city council. Which means, there will be fireworks everywhere across the country.
There are a few more popular location for fireworks watching which is Hallgrímskirkja church (where we choose to watch this spectacular show) or Perlan.
A local told me that there is a certain window frame period to buy these fireworks at designated location. And most of the proceeds goes to Icelandic Search and Rescue Teams. We started hearing fireworks being set up as early as 8pm, even before the new year starts. There are randomly set up on the streets in the neighbourhood, thus, you get to see the sky constantly being lit up. When we are in front of Hallgrímskirkja church, we saw that an area has been set up for fireworks. One by one, the locals will bring their fireworks to set up in that area. It was non-stop of lights and sound display. The first in my life, I am standing so close to the fireworks and seeing it being set off continuously. The experience was unforgettable.
Standing amongst the crowd surrounded with fireworks in with a 3 dimensional effect, just watching in awe. This was the first count down I’ve watched in a country’s major city with no programs organised by the government body or a major organsier. There’s no performance, no music, no countdown, just sheer celebration of setting off fireworks. This is the Icelandic way – “Simple but genuine”.
3rd night stay : First Hotel Kopavogur
We couldn’t find any hotels at all for New Year’s Eve. Even if do, the price per night per room is SGD1500 (USD 1000) and above for a standard room. We don’t feel it’s worth to spend so much just to stay in town. Luckily, we managed to secure a room in Kopavogur which is around 20minutes drive from main town area. We got the car, so transport is not a problem. This is a very nice and basic hotel. I believed on normal days, the room would cost much cheaper than what we paid on New Year’s eve, so this is considered a very decent hotel for anyone on a budget. For us, we paid triple the price for one night, all thanks to our last minute booking.
words by Jennifer Ghiam
photos by JENNIFER GHIAM & YUNIUQUEYUNI
– Golden circle:
- Thingvellir National Park – Öxarárfoss
- Gullfoss
- The great Geysir
The above are the 3 main most visited tourist sites for a full day tour. If time permits, another must do is to go snorkelling in Thingvellir and experience diving in the clearest water in the world.
– Stay:
- Hotel Kriunes (highly recommended) – Day 1
- Tower Suite Reykjavík (must stay!) – Day 2
- First Hotel Kopavogur (out of town budget) – Day 3
– Visit:
- Harpa Concert Hall
- Hallgrimskirkja Church in main town center
- Shop on Laugavegur main street
You can read more on what is see in Reykjavik here, but in our opinion, besides the Perlan which we didn’t visit as it’s a little out of the way, the above are the few most commonly visited and important places in Reykjavik.
– Eat:
- Tapas Barinn (must try!)
- Shanghai Chinese Restaurant (if you are craving Chinese food in town. Decent but don’t think I’ll go back again)
- Eldur and Is Ice-cream and crepes (must try!)
Read here for more list on the best restaurant to dine. (of course Tapas Barinn is included!)
This ends my long post of Day 1 – 3 of our 10 days Iceland journey. I’ve summarised the important points above for the Golden Circle, places to stay, eat and visit. Stay tuned for my next post blog on my journey in Iceland. Thank you for reading and I hope you find this post helpful.
