The Golden Circle
Þingvellir, the Strokkur geyser and Gullfoss waterfall, on a three-hundred-kilometre loop.
Duration
7 hrs – 9 hrs
Difficulty
●●○○○
Best time
Early morning departure
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The loop runs about three hundred kilometres from Reykjavik and takes in three very different stops. Þingvellir is a rift: the Mid-Atlantic Ridge breaks the surface there, and you walk between the North American and Eurasian plates — it is also the site of the oldest parliament in the world, the Alþingi, founded in 930.
Geysir, which gave the phenomenon its name, no longer erupts; it is its neighbour Strokkur that goes every five to ten minutes, some twenty metres up. Gullfoss drops in two steps into a canyon, and the spray it throws makes a permanent rainbow in clear weather.
Getting there
Route 1 then 36 out of Reykjavik. With a hire car the loop is a day trip; without one, organised coaches leave from the city centre.
What to bring
- Board
- International driving permit
Rules on site
All three sites are free; only the Þingvellir car parks are charged. The Icelandic wind rips open car doors off their hinges: hold them with both hands — it is hire companies' biggest single claim.
Other places in Reykjavik
Blue LagoonMilky thirty-eight-degree water in a field of black lava.
HallgrímskirkjaA seventy-four-metre concrete church shaped after basalt columns.
Northern lightsFrom September to March, as soon as you step away from the city lights.
- The south coastSeljalandsfoss, which you walk behind, Skógafoss, and the black sand of Reynisfjara.