Best Beach Vacation Ever// Paris & Iceland, Day 8

Sunday, October 8, 2017
In the morning, we were the first ones up at our shared Airbnb home. It appeared that it was just us and the group of girls in the room next door. I guess the hosts just use this space exclusively for Airbnb? I'm not sure, but I know it was actually the host's son who got us checked in the night before, so maybe the host was just traveling or something. In either case, we were up around 5:30 AM, and our host had graciously provided a simple breakfast spread of coffee/tea, toast, and cereal. I loved that we were able to take a look around and see how an actual Icelandic home was set-up.

Icelandic Home

Our first stop was Jökulsárlón Iceberg Lagoon, which is just amazing to behold.

This was definitely one of those places I could've lingered for hours just taking photos and wandering the beach. 

It was raining when we first got there, but it thankfully stopped when we went down to the iceberg beach.

Iceberg rescue attempt

I know this isn't everyone's idea of an amazing beach vacation, but I freaking loved it.

The Jökulsárlón lagoon is right next to Vatnajökull, Europe's largest glacier. Vatnajökull and its surrounding area is Iceland's largest national park, and the second biggest national park in Europe. The lagoon is formed naturally, from melted glacial water coming from the glacier and is getting bigger each year, as big blocks of ice crumble from the ever decreasing glacier into the lagoon.

We got our feet wet at one point when we were posing for a photo. Another couple was taking the photo for us, and they tried to warn us, but it was too late. LOL, they always say never turn your back on the ocean!  

Onwards to our next destination, and we passed this beauty. I think this is either the Skaftafellsjökull or Morsárjökull glacier.  

Honestly, the weather couldn't have been more perfect for the many hikes we went on. 

I don't think we encountered more perfect fall foliage than during our hike to Svartifoss, a waterfall framed by hexagonal basalt columns.  

The hike was a little steep on the way up, so I had a pretty good clip going downhill on the way back. I ended up a good ways ahead of Francisco. I paused at a break in the trail and thought I'd take some artsy pictures of this bridge and the river...and then I started second-guessing myself. Wait, am I even on the right trail? Shouldn't he be pretty close to caught up by now? Sigh, WHY did I go on ahead? I KNOW I'm the most directionally-challenged person ever. I back-tracked and started walking down another trail and asked someone which direction it was to the parking lot. I figured at the very least I could go find the car and wait there. I hustled down the hill and finally spotted Francisco up ahead and caught up with him.   

Our drive took us through the most stunning moss-covered rock scenery. I was captivated and could have just taken pictures of green rocks for hours if we'd had the time.  

At Reynisfjara beach, we were warned of sneaker waves - and how these deadly waves have claimed the lives of tourists at Iceland's most dangerous beach.  This is a black sand beach backed by stacks of basalt columns at the foot of the mountain Reynisfjall. 

Have I mentioned that Iceland is just a photographers dream?  

As we drove away, we encountered what is possibly the most magical place I've ever seen. Unfortunately, this is one of those places I found impossible to capture on camera. But picture this, you're driving along, admiring the amazing Icelandic scenery and suddenly, you're like "holy sh*t, are they walking on water?! is it ice?" And we had to pull over to explore this marvel.  

The effect here was caused by the very thin layer of water across the ground, mirroring the sky and surrounding landscape. It was absolutely marvelous.  

Dyrhólaey means "the hill island with the door hole", and this location offered us a closer up view of the lava rock formations we could see from Reynisfjara beach.  

Finally, we arrived at our last stop of the day, the site of the Sólheimasandur Plane Crash. Back in 1973, a United States Navy DC-3 crashed on the beach here. While it used to be possible to drive up to the site, local landowners have since banned access to vehicles driving on the beach. You now have to walk 4 km to the plane from the road. 

This means it's at least a 40-minute walk each direction. It took us 45 minutes walking at a fair pace. Some reports have the walk taking as long as an hour and a half each direction, so it just depends on how fast you walk.  It made for some great podcast-listening time [I just should've brought better headphones]. Just be aware that you will be competing with many other tourists who walked a long way to get their pictures of a downed aircraft!  

We trudged back to the car, passing some people who were still making there way out there even though night was fast approaching. I would not want to make that walk at night. It's a straight shot, but there were a lot of sizable rocks in the path you could trip over. Most importantly, the site isn't illuminated at all, so it would be more difficult to get photos of the plane.

Hotel Hella was the only official hotel we stayed at for our trip.  At least the only one that we didn't book through airbnb. Our room was older, but it was spacious. In the morning, it included a fairly expansive breakfast with cheese, boiled eggs, pastries, cereal, and yogurt. 

We walked over to the gas station next door to grab a veggie burger for dinner. Icelandic gas stations are actually known for serving good quality food, so it is common to have a full meal there. Our burger was pretty tasty!  

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