It’s Tuesday, which means it’s video day! This is the first day in a series of daily vlogs from my trip to Iceland this summer. It’s a pretty big travel day: driving to Gatwick, flying to the airport, picking up my car and driving to… well, as you know from the title, Þingvellir. It was supposed to be Akranes but time really got away from me.
It occurs to me that putting all these videos on my blog gives me an opportunity for a little behind-the-scenes that for whatever reason didn’t make it into the video, or the blog posts covering the events in said video. So today…
- I saw the erupting volcano from the plane! Just a waft of smoke but still.
- I drove that car the long way to Þingvellir via the south coast of Reykjanes and Hveragerði. Not the route the satnav would suggest but I was adamant about avoiding Reykjavík. I’m not a city driver, especially in a car that’s still so unfamiliar.
- That’s a journey of 156km, which Google Maps thinks should take 2h 7m. I left at probably about 5.30pm and arrived somewhere around 8.15-8.30pm. That’s partly because I stopped a couple of times but mostly because I was driving fairly slowly, being uncertain of the car. The direct route, ploughing through Reykjavik, is 93km.
- Þingvellir has four campsites. I thought the “main” one was too busy, the lake one too far away and someone was playing obnoxiously loud music on the one on the other side of the road. Next time I’ll take the lakeside one.
- I did a quick food shop at Grindavik. I don’t think shopping is going to appear in the entire series but yes, I did eat. I went to a supermarket about every other day.
And without further ado, here is the video. Iceland, summer 2023, day one: