Robert's Travels

The flight landed at the Keflavík International Airport at approximately 4:15 AM, which was about 35 minutes earlier than scheduled. The plane did not park at a gate with a jet bridge, so we had to use the airstairs to disembark. It was quite chilly stepping off the plane; however a flight attendant had warned us of the cooler temperature so I had put my hoodie and vest on. I cleared immigration quickly, and my backpack was one of the first bags out in the baggage claim area. I met up with Kate and Dave in the arrivals area shortly after 4:45 AM. Their flight had arrived about an hour ahead of mine, and they had just been waiting in the terminal for me to arrive.

None of the rental car companies have pickup desks in the terminal, so we walked to the rental car bus pickup point about 100 m outside the terminal. It was still quite dark outside, and lightly raining. There was a bus waiting, so we were able to stay pretty dry. We had booked the rental car through Reykjavík Cars, which was at the second pickup point on the bus route. Their office was not well marked; it was actually inside the office of a different company (Blue Car Rentals), however once I re-checked the reservation I was able to find the directions to the office without issue. We checked in and started the process, however we were not able to get the car immediately due to a bit of a mixup. We had requested a box for the top of the vehicle, to give us more space to hold all the bags, however the car we had booked did not have an appropriate roof rack for the box. It took them a bit of time to figure things out, however, in the end they upgraded us to a Kia Sorento which had a roof rack for the box to be mounted to. We ended up leaving the office around 5:30 AM, and started the drive towards Reykjavík.

The drive to Reykjavík took about 45 minutes, and was very uneventful. It wasn’t a terribly interesting drive; we were not able to see much without the sun being up. The car came with a Wi-Fi hotspot, so while we were driving into the city Kate and Dave used their phones to search for breakfast choices. After reading reviews and looking opening times, we settled upon a place named ‘The Grey Cat’. We drove there, and upon arriving found a parking spot a block away from the restaurant. It was about 6:45 AM, and it was pouring rain. The restaurant didn’t open until 7:15, so we chilled in the car waiting for the time to pass. At 7:15 we got out of the car and walked to the restaurant, only to discover it was still locked and there was no sign of life. We went back to the car and waiting for a bit more, and noticed how quiet downtown Reykjavík is during the morning. There were only a few people walking around, and even fewer driving. At 7:30 we stopped waiting and checked back, and discovered it was still closed. We decided to choose a different restaurant, and settled upon Kaffitár. A quick walk later and we were there.

Kaffitár was pretty quiet, it looked as if it had just opened. We were quite hungry by this point, and quickly ordered coffee and some food. I had a breakfast sandwich that was quite good, along with a black coffee. This meal was our first introduction to food prices in Iceland, and they were just as expensive as we were warned. My meal, a coffee and a breakfast sandwich, was 1920 Icelandic Króna (ISK), or about $22 CAD.

After breakfast we went back to the car, and drove several blocks to Chris and Susan’s hotel. Kate, Dave and I were all feeling a bit tired and gross from the flight, so we used the stop at Chris and Susan’s hotel to brush our teeth, wash our faces and clean up to feel a little more human. After a 30 minute stop, we all got into the car and started a driving tour of the city. The rain was still coming down, so we decided seeing the sights from a car was going to be more enjoyable than walking.

We started by driving past Hallgrímskirkja, a gorgeous church right in downtown Reykjavík. We continued driving and saw a shiny glass dome on the hill, so we decided to pull up to it. The building was Perlan, a museum with an observation deck that overlooks the city. We decided to go inside, and discovered that it was showing an exhibit about glaciers and ice caves. We toured through a series of photos that documented the volcanoes of Iceland in various stages of eruption, and then toured through an ice cave they had set up in the building. We were guided through a series of tunnels that showed us the makeup and structure of ice caves. The ice cave was built from approximately 380 tonnes of ice that was shipped to the building, most of it imported from Denmark. It was a super unique experience (it was also super cold).

After touring through the ice cave we went to the observation deck. This provided us with a great view of the city, however it was still drizzling so we didn’t spend a ton of time outside. We left Perlan around 1:00 PM.

We continued our driving tour, and decided to get lunch. We ended up settling on a pizza place named Eldsmiðjan, which was quite good. After we finished lunch we decided to drive out to the Hellisheiði power station. It had received mixed reviews on TripAdvisor, but we were very glad we spent the 30 minutes it took to get there. The tour was very informative, and it was cool to see the generators and turbines that power most of Reykjavík. There isn’t tons to see - the steam is all collected through pipes, but none the less the experience is worth it.

We returned to Reykjavík and checked into our AirBnB. Kate, Dave and I were all quite tired - none of us really slept on the plane, and we had been awake for almost 36 hours by this point, so we took a 90 minute nap. After waking up I took Chris and Susan to the grocery store, where we got the ingredients for dinner. We came back to the AirBnB where Kate and Dave had woken up, and we prepared dinner - a chicken and pasta dish with steamed mushrooms and broccoli.

After dinner the group decided they wanted some ice cream for dessert, but I was feeling a bit under the weather so I decided to stay behind. I broke out a book and read for about an hour, then when the group returned socialized briefly before going to bed.