Day 2
THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
This Golden Circle tour takes you from Reykjavik city to Þingvellir National Park, arguably the most important site in Iceland in terms of history, culture, and geology. Þingvellir National Park is a UNESCO world heritage site, home to Iceland‘s largest natural lake and the place where the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia split and drift apart. Þingvellir is also the birth place of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth and the Alþingi assembly, where Iceland’s most powerful leaders met to decide on legislation and carry out brutal viking-age justice.
The tour continues from Þingvellir along the Golden Circle route, across an area of beautiful scenery towards two of Iceland's greatest natural attractions at Gullfoss waterfall and Geysir hot spring area. At Gullfoss waterfall you can take a short walk down a pathway and get right up close to this powerful waterfall and feel the mist of glacial water on your face as it cascades down into the narrow Hvítárgljúfur Canyon.
Lunch break is usually taken at Gullfoss Cafe or at the service center at the Geysir area.
Home of "The Great Geysir" hot spring, which all geysers are named after, this area is an impressive collage of bubbling mud pools, hissing steam vents, and colorful algae deposits. It also features one of the world's most reliable fountain geyser, Strokkur hot spring, that every 4 to 8 minutes blasts out a column of super heated water up to 20 meters into the air.
From mid-September to mid-April you go on an evening Tour to hunt for the Northern Lights..