Our trip to Iceland with Iceland Pro Cruises

I did a time lapse of a lot of our travels between destinations, out our cabin window
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGEJFB6Ud70 

We came into Reykjavik from Boston early in the morning and had the day to walk around the city
We mostly walked around all day, checking out the sites like the Hallgrímskirkja church




Walked to the local mall to pick up a sim card for the trip, 5GB of 3g/4g for $16 usd



We had quite a bit of time to kill so we checked out the Saga Museum, they have wax figures that
explain the history of Iceland, with an audio tour.


We checked out the Concert hall as well



Weird shrimp cake thing they had at the local flea market

We boarded around 4PM and got settled in.

Our room was a bit dated, but super clean and really fit our needs well for the trip

That evening we set sail for Stykkisholmur

The next morning we had a bus tour around the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. We had views of the
Snaefellsjökull glacier, tons of waterfalls and made a bunch of stops along the way.





We had a 10 minute walk down to this black sand/stone beach


Then we headed to the Londrangar Rocks




Our last stop was the small fishing village of Arnarstapi. It was super windy here, it
felt like 40-50 mph steady winds, you can see the wind in the background pushing the sand out to see from the mountain windows








That evening we set sail for Isafjördur, in the Westfjords.

Some nights they had lectures if you wanted to go(in both German and English). This night it was about the birds of Iceland

We were originally going to go sea fishing from here, but changed our minds and did another bus tour. We went to Thingeyri, Hrafnseyri, and the Dynjandi Waterfall.

Our first stop was Hrafnseyri. It was a bit of a boring stop.  “Hrafnseyri boasts
an old Viking farm and is also the birthplace of nationalist leader Jón Sigurðsson
who was instrumental in Iceland gaining its independence from Denmark. ”




No clue what it was for but it looked like a grave to me

Then we went to the Dynjandi waterfall. It’s a series of waterfalls that have a cumulative height of 100 metres (330 ft)







Our last stop was Thingeyri, a small town were we mainly just walked around and went to a cafe

The country is covered in these Alaskan Lupine flowers(you can see on the hill on the left). They imported them to control erosion

Didnt see many dogs around Iceland, a couple guys tied up their dogs here when they went to the cafe

That night we sailed for Siglufjördur, a small fishing town.

We went for a walk in the morning. They were bringing in their catch, but also had some type of shark in one of the bins

They were quite proud of their avalanche fences and berms. It seems to be a big problem in some of their small towns, where avalanches will come down from the steep slopes above and either close the town, or wipe them out completely



We wanted to try to get a short hike in that morning, even if it was pretty grey and wet.

We hiked up this ridge a while, but the Lupine flowers absolutely soaked our pants(wet from the constant mist).

I went out for a zodiac ride that afternoon(filled with german tourists and a german
speaking guide). Fairly uneventful but we did see a seal, and some of the views were pretty

We tried to hike up another trail, but they had it all closed down due to falling rocks,
so we headed back to the ship.



We left quickly that afternoon for Akureyri, the biggest town in the north and the second biggest urban area(almost 18k people). We had an early dinner and headed out to walk the town around 8. They have a botanical garden that’s open until 10pm, apparently the most northern botanical garden in the world.







Almost every town has a public pool/slides for their residents, either heated by geothermal or normally if their area doesn’t have accessible underground heat. This one had a separate duck pond that they keep heated below



They had super expensive excursions available the next day. The one we were interested in was almost $300 a person and didn’t do anything that we couldn’t do on our own, so we rented a car for a little over $100, and ended up only spending $35 all day, just on gas. Each day you’re off the boat they pack you a giant bag lunch, so we rarely stopped for food except for a few snacks and cafe stops

Our white yaris at a scenic stop on the way

Same stop. Hard to get decent pictures with how grey it was, but we were on top of pretty big cliffs with huge black sand beaches in the distance

Our first main stop was Asbyrgi Canyon.

It was a short hike to get to the back of the canyon


After that we were on a gravel road for a long time to check out a couple waterfalls

There was absolutely nothing on both sides of the road for most of the time

The road was in good condition for a bit, but quickly turned into ruts and washboard


Our first waterfall was Rettarfoss, downstream from the bigger Dettifoss.


You can see a falcon on the bottom right peak of this picture

Next stop was dettifoss, which are 100 metres (330 ft) wide and have a drop of 45 metres (150 ft) down It is the largest waterfall in Iceland in terms of volume discharge, having an average water flow of 193 m3/s.





After the waterfall and driving on the dirt roads for a while longer, we went to the
geothermal steam vents at Hverarondor Hverir.



After that we did a short hike at Mt Hverfjall , a 2500 year old tephra crater. The crater is about 1 km in diameter and 140 meters deep.



The weather in this area was pretty bad, so we stopped for a few pics at lake Mývatn, and continued on

Our last stop for the day was Goðafoss waterfall




Akureyri installed heart shaped red lights during their 2008 financial crisis, to try to
put a smile on people’s faces


The next morning we were anchored off the cost of Flatey, a small island to the north.
We took zodiacs to the island so we could walk around for an hour and a half or so. It’s a small island with some houses(mostly summer houses now), and over 30 species of birds.



They had huge puffin colonies there, which we had been trying to find for most of the trip




They also had these birds called Arctic Terns which are pretty crazy. They travel to Iceland to nest in the summer, and they come from Antarctica every year, somewhere between a 45 and 55,000 mile round trip every year. The longest migration of all animals. Many of them also live to be about 30 years old.


They’re supposedly very nice in Antarctica, but when they’re nesting in Iceland they
can be quite mean. They’ll swoop down to your head to try to scare you out of the area as you can see in the picture. Some people in iceland even frequently get hit in the head by these birds, but luckily we didn’t.





We went whale watching that afternoon in the area around Flatey, where we saw some minke and other types of whales. We mostly just saw them surfacing, nothing super exciting, but better than nothing




That evening we crossed the arctic circle for a short period of time, and then continued towards our next stop in Seydisfjördur. We walked around the town that morning, and did a small hike to one of the waterfalls in town








That afternoon we did an excursion to Husey, to go Sealwatching on Horseback. We got to see quite a few seals in the river as we rode, but most were too far to photograph


We got buzzed by more birds protecting their nests here as well, but perhaps the guide picking up their baby was part of the reason
https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t50.2886-16/11769156_1430557117274127_1470060163_n.mp4
https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t50.2886-16/11785126_1594530320812801_702730643_n.mp4


Our next stop was supposed to be Hofn, but apparently the harbor there is too shallow now for our
ship due to all of the sediment from the river, so we stopped in a smaller town called
Djúpivogur instead. We had a fairly long bus ride that morning, our first stop was the
Vatnajökull glacier so we could go snowmobiling. It’s Europe’s largest glacier, but it was totally socked in the clouds during most of our ride. We had a few glimpses of sun, showing us some peaks and crevasses in the glacier

There were only 5 of us snowmobiling, after that we met up with the rest of our group so we could take a short boat trip in the Jökulsarlon Glacier Lagoon






Guide with a 1000 year old piece of ice from the lagoon


On the way back we were lucky enough to see some Reindeer, there are only about 4500 of them and they’re all located in eastern Iceland


We walked around Djúpivogur a bit before leaving that night





That night we had dinner, but instead of dessert the pastry chef had made a ton of different desserts for everyone, and they had prosecco as well.


Our last stop was Vestmannaeyjar in Westman Islands.




They had a volcano erupt here in 1973. You can see where the lava flowed towards the harbor on the left side. It threatened to close off the harbor, but they were able to stop the lava flow with water, and it actually ended up making the harbor more protected than before




We had a couple hours available that morning, so we decided to hike up Heimaklettur, which is up about 930 feet, but was right near our dock. It’s a pretty steep trail, with some ladders at the start



You can see where the lava flowed through the town, and the houses that it missed


Of course there were a bunch of sheep up there on this super exposed area









He was using the trail marker as a scratching post





That afternoon we played golf in a sunken volcanic crater





After golf, our ride back to the ship was with a super nice man who happened to have been an ex police officer from this town. He gladly gave us an hour+ long tour of the whole island, showing us more than we could ever have done on our own or even with an official tour. It was an amazing way to wrap up the trip.
The next morning we returned to reykjavik, and took off that evening for boston. We stayed one night in Boston where we got upgraded to an awesome suite at their harbor hotel