Iceland 2025

June 8th, 2025

After a pleas­ant night - we slept very well in our motorhome - we enjoyed our first break­fast in the camper, which was real­ly cool. The show­er worked very well too. Then we set off for Þingvel­lir Nation­al Park. Alas­ka lupines were grow­ing every­where along the road­side, a beau­ti­ful pur­ple sight to behold.

Due to its great his­tor­i­cal and geo­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance, Þingvel­lir is con­sid­ered Ice­land’s nation­al sanc­tu­ary. Ice­land’s first nation­al park was estab­lished there in 1928. The area around Þingvel­lir has been includ­ed in the UNESCO World Her­itage List because of its out­stand­ing uni­ver­sal value.

The name Þingvel­lir lit­er­al­ly means “plain of the peo­ple’s assem­bly” and is con­sid­ered a sym­bol of Ice­landic his­to­ry. In 930, the Alþin­gi, the Ice­landic par­lia­ment, was found­ed here—the old­est par­lia­ment still in exis­tence in the world. For almost nine cen­turies, until 1798, the assem­blies took place on the banks of the Öxará. Numer­ous for­ma­tive events in the coun­try’s his­to­ry took place here, which is why Þingvel­lir is con­sid­ered by many Ice­landers to be the true cra­dle of their nation.

The fas­ci­nat­ing land­scape of Þingvel­lir was cre­at­ed in the unique geo­log­i­cal envi­ron­ment of a rift between the North Amer­i­can and Eurasian con­ti­nen­tal plates. Here, tec­ton­ic forces tear apart the lava fields and form spec­tac­u­lar fis­sures and gorges. Par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive is the Alman­nagjá gorge, which is con­sid­ered the high­light of the nation­al park.

Before reach­ing the actu­al park­ing lot, there was a nice view­point over­look­ing the lake Þingvel­lir­vatn. This should be the largest lake in Ice­land. In addi­tion, the park is locat­ed between the con­ti­nents, so to speak, and is drift­ing apart. The gorges can be clear­ly seen from here:

I actu­al­ly want­ed to fly my drone here, but that’s not allowed in the nation­al park and there were a lot of peo­ple around. Þingvel­lir is locat­ed on the so-called “Gold­en Cir­cle” and is only about a 40-minute dri­ve from the cap­i­tal Reyk­javik, mak­ing it a very pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for day trips. In fact, the whole park is quite a tourist attrac­tion and there­fore full of peo­ple. Not real­ly what we were look­ing for, but it is very beau­ti­ful here. It’s def­i­nite­ly worth seeing.

In addi­tion to our first water­fall in Ice­land, Öxarár­foss, the small church Þing­val­lakirk­ja and the five-gabled Þingvel­lir house were also worth see­ing. The house con­tains the offices of the Ice­landic Prime Min­is­ter (gables 1-4), the park man­ag­er, and the priest of the small church (gable 5).

After vis­it­ing the first water­fall, Öxarár­foss in Þingvel­lir Nation­al Park, we sat down with a cof­fee and a few cin­na­mon rolls in the com­fort of our mobile home and planned our next adven­tures. It’s real­ly cool to trav­el in a camper!

After a short break, we con­tin­ued to Geysir and Strokkur. The geyser called “Geysir” has been dor­mant for a long time, and apart from its steam, there was lit­tle to see.

The Great Geyser was first men­tioned in 1294, when a strong earth­quake shook the already known springs of Haukadalur and sig­nif­i­cant­ly altered the geo­log­i­cal activ­i­ty. In 1647, it was first described by Bish­op Bryn­jól­fur Sveins­son under the name Geysir. As ear­ly as the 17th cen­tu­ry, it was rec­og­nized that the activ­i­ty of the spring must be direct­ly relat­ed to earth­quakes. In 1845, it reached a height of 170 meters. Its erup­tions usu­al­ly reached heights of up to 60 meters. The Great Geysir ceased its activ­i­ty in 1915. It only became active again for a few years in 1935, before going dor­mant for a long period.

By the way, it’s the name­sake for all gey­sers around the world. The word “geyser” comes from the Ice­landic verb “geysa,” which means “to gush,” “to spurt,” or “to flow wild­ly.” The name was adopt­ed from Ice­landic into eng­lish and oth­er lan­guages in the 19th cen­tu­ry and then came to be used to describe all sim­i­lar hydrother­mal phe­nom­e­na worldwide.

The neigh­bor­ing Strokkur geyser, on the oth­er hand, pro­vid­ed a spec­tac­u­lar show - and did so approx­i­mate­ly every 10 minutes.

And final­ly, we con­tin­ued along the Gold­en Cir­cle to Gul­foss. It was cold, windy, and quite loud there. The Hvítá Riv­er plunges down two steps here - 11 and 21 meters high - into an impres­sive gorge that is up to 70 meters deep.

The enor­mous vol­ume of water is par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive: on aver­age, around 109 m³ per sec­ond rush down into the depths, and even more in sum­mer. The gorge was formed over thou­sands of years by the inter­ac­tion of water and ice. Twice in the 20th cen­tu­ry – in 1930 and 1948 – it was com­plete­ly flood­ed by glac­i­er runs.

Sigríður Tómas­dót­tir – the woman who saved Gullfoss

The fact that Gull­foss can still be seen in its orig­i­nal form today is not a mat­ter of course. At the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry, an Eng­lish com­pa­ny planned to build a hydro­elec­tric pow­er sta­tion here. The water­fall had already been leased, and a dam seemed only a mat­ter of time.

Sigríður Tómas­dót­tir, a farmer’s wife from the near­by Brattholt farm, cam­paigned tire­less­ly against this project. With the sup­port of lawyer Sveinn Björns­son, who lat­er became pres­i­dent of Ice­land, she fought a long legal bat­tle. When the sit­u­a­tion seemed hope­less, she even threat­ened to throw her­self into the waters. In the end, the lease agree­ment failed – pre­cise­ly because of a late pay­ment – and the water­fall returned to state ownership.

Today, a stone plaque at the water­fall com­mem­o­rates her efforts. Lat­er plans to use the water for ener­gy were also reject­ed. Since 1979, Gull­foss has been offi­cial­ly pro­tect­ed as a nature reserve and belongs to the Ice­landic state.

Here are some pic­tures of Gulfoss:

There were also some impos­ing 8x8 vehi­cles for off-road tours parked in the park­ing lot. Until now, I had only seen these vehi­cles on tele­vi­sion with inter­con­ti­nen­tal mis­siles on their backs. I much pre­fer these ver­sions here:

We then looked for a camp­site. We chose the Flúðir camp­ing site. The site was huge and we found a good spot. After the usu­al prepa­ra­tions (con­nect­ing to elec­tric­i­ty, lev­el­ing the vehi­cle with ramps), we cooked the clas­sic camper meal: spaghet­ti Bolog­nese. We start­ed with a deli­cious sal­ad. We enjoyed a glass of red wine 🍷 from the shop at Keflavik Air­port. Delicious!