The Golden Circle Tour – Iceland 

No trip to Iceland is complete without doing “The Golden Circle Tour”. This is very accessible from Reykjavik. It is also an excellent way to see some of Icelands unique geographical features in a single day trip.

Do shop around when planning this tour. I highly recommend you select a small tour group (less than 20 people) and you see if they can provide anything unusual to make the day extra special ! 

I went with a small tour group which also stopped for Ice Cream at a unique location and took us to lunch in a greenhouse. My tour (excluding lunch and ice cream) cost 17,800 ISK (€118 or $128). While this may seem expensive, it’s par for the course in Iceland. 

I was collected at a local bus stop, right by my hotel, just after 8.30am for a tour start time of 9am. We returned at about 5.30pm.

Iceland is located on a rift between two tectonic plates (the Eurasian and North American plates). This is what creates the amazing geographical features you will see on this tour. These include volcanos, craters, geysers and rifts.

Pingvellir National Park

This World Unesco Site was the first stop on our tour and we arrived just as the sun was rising. This rift valley was the first site of the Icelandic parliament and they sat here from 930 AD until 1798. 

Pingvellir translated from Icelandic means “Assembly Plains”. Under the impressive brown colour rugged mountains, you can see where the assembly met.

You can walk around the park and view the beautiful natural lake, which is the ideal place to watch the sunrise or set. 

Skjaldbreidur, is an example of an Ancient Shield Volcano. They are tall, broad with flat rounded shapes and usually have large craters at their summits. The lava from this volcano now covers the Pingvellir valley, giving it the black soil, you will see throughout Iceland.  

We had about 45 minutes to view this site at our own pace. There was a large parking area, beside lots of public bathrooms, a visitors center, a coffee and gift shop. 

Hot Geysers

As you drive through the countryside you will see the smoke shooting up from the ground. These are the many hot springs and Geysers which are throughout Iceland. 

This tour stopped at one of the largest sites which has an active geyser along with lots of waterpools. 

Strokkur erupts every 10 or 15 minutes, so you wont have to wait long to see and hear it. People do stand quite near it and you can feel the heat of the stream as well as smell the unusual fumes it transmits. 

There are several smaller hot pools on the site and it’s worth going close to them to see the colour of the water, the soil and to smell them at a safer distance. I heard one person describe the smell as like a boiled egg and I thought that was a good description. 

Geysir is now dormant so doesn’t erupt. You can climb a small hill and see all the pools and geysers from above. This wonderful area is about 90 mins from Reykjavik and is well worth visiting.  

Gullfoss

This is one of the most impressive Waterfalls I have seen anywhere in the World. While it isn’t the largest Waterfall in Iceland, it is considered the largest waterfall by volume, in Europe. 

This 2 tiered waterfall is situated in a canyon on the Hvita river. You can walk around and appreciate it from various angles. Part of it freezes during the wintertime. 

Foss means waterfall and Gull means Golden. Gullfoss got its name from the rainbows that are regularly seen by the waters edge. The water is a mixture of blue and green and the sound of the water flowing is extremely loud. 

To the North the landscape has Icy Peaks and everywhere you can see the gravelly desert, that is so commonplace in Iceland. Closer to the falls the vegetation is quite green. 

I understand the large visitor center serves food but you can’t see the falls from it. You can apparently see a great view of the surrounding countryside though.  

Gullfoss is 117km from Reykjavik which will take about 2 hours to drive. You drive through Pringvallavegur to reach Gullfoss.

Pjorsardalur

This river valley was created when the Heckla Volcano erupted. It has erupted more than 12 times since settlers first came to Iceland. The last major recorded eruption was in 1940. However it can have small eruptions at any time. 

You can walk down to the bottom of the crater and walk around the amazing green coloured lake, surrounded by black volcanic rock. This really is a site to see both from above and below.

Keira Ice Cream Farm and Shop

We stopped at a small dairy Farm which had a shop and restaurant on the site. They sold Ice Cream which was made there and it was delicious. They had a wide variety of flavours and one scoop in a cone cost 850 ISK (€5.60 or $6). 

Living in Italy, I am quite fussy about Ice Cream, but this was really delicious and a treat to purchase it at the farm where it was made.

The jersey cows were all in a barn which had a window looking straight into the shop. They all appeared to be keeping watch on their end product as it was devoured by hungry tourists. 

The farm had a restaurant on site also and I think this would also be a nice place to have a memorable meal. 

Fridheimar Tomato Fram 

We stopped for lunch at this very interesting Tomato farm. The restaurant is situated right in one of the large greenhouses. A guide gave us a quick overview of how the Tomato farm operates first. It produces 30% of the tomatoes consumed in Iceland and none are exported. Most looked like small cherry tomatoes but they do grow larger ones also. The cherry ones were available in red, yellow and green. They gave us some to taste and they were sweet and full of flavour.

The goal is to farm them in a sustainable manner and to cope with the harsh winter temperatures. An intrinsic watering and light system was visible throughout the greenhouses. No fertilisers are used and the plant food used is organic.

All selections on the menu were of course based on Tomatoes. They offered a pasta, pizza, salad and soup choice. If you ordered the soup it was unlimited and you helped yourself to it, from the large urns. They also bake their own bread on site and they had some delicious options including an olive and of course a tomato variety. They also had a tomato beer on tap which I didn’t try. It looked just like a normal lager. The people on the tour that had it, said it tasted the same as regular lager but was very light and easy to drink. I had the Tomato soup, which also was very light but flavoursome. I also had a vegetable skewer which had a selection of tomatoes, cheeses, mushrooms and peppers and everything was served with the delicious bread. This along with a glass of wine cost 7,000ISK (€45 or $49).

I really enjoyed our visit to this unique farm and restaurant.

Summary

As the Golden Circle is so close to Reykjavik and is extremely popular, tour companies will offer different options. Some include a stop at the Blue Lagoon and others will take you to see different park areas. 

I really enjoyed this day and was delighted to see so many unique geographical features in one day. I also don’t think I would have seen so many, if I had hired a car and drove around myself.

As it cost about €70 to hire a car for a single day and each attraction had a small entrance fee, the overall cost really wasn’t all that expensive in the long run !   

I highly recommend you go on an organised Golden Circle Tour, when visiting Reykjavik ! Just shop around and select the one which appeals to you.