Iceland Day 7 - Golden Circle Drive

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Early morning breakfast was waiting for me after a shower. What was it? Peanut butter and bread, coconut flakes, chocolate and dates, decaf coffee. Then, out the door, on the bus, to the Reykjavik domestic airport to pick up a rental car. It was cold, windy, wet, and grey.

We took the car into the Golden Circle, passing through a gauntlet of roundabouts, then reaching the desolate, black ash and boulder hills. An hour more, and we reached Thingvellir, the traditional gathering place of Icelandic governing councils and the tectonic edge of North America. There a cliff rears up over a boggy plain. Crystal blue water runs through rock gashes, and the bottoms glitter with kronor coin.

We stopped to sit at an old church and warm ourselves before we crossed the road to find (after a bit of searching) a trail out into the bald wilderness. It runs over hard, grooved stone, and thick moss carpets. It leaps over a tear in the earth’s crust. Stone pilings or cairns marked our progress.

We unwound and went back to the city, drove downtown, and found a happy hour at Meza, with a Polish ex-pat who gripped about Iceland’s shortfalls.

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