Part 3 (complete)
Akureyri, Iceland – We did a tour with Iceland Everywhere. I picked them because they are small group (mini-bus max 16-19) and have a very generous cancellation policy. It’s 24 hours before, but they give the option of paying on the bus and don’t take a deposit, so no idea how they’d even enforce that.
Goðafoss:
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Hverir geothermal area:
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Isafjordur, Iceland – we skipped this port because the pier wasn’t finished. Apparently, the Prima doesn’t have the ability to tender with their lifeboats. When I was researching, Vigur Island was my top choice. But NCL got a monopoly on their tours for cruise passengers, and it was really overpriced! Ended up deciding on a private taxi tour of Dynjandi waterfall instead (no deposit and was easy to cancel).
Reykjavik – We had an overnight in Reykjavik, so took the free port shuttle that drops off at Harpa concert hall. We walked around the shopping streets and saw where our Airbnb near Sandholt Bakery was.
After the cruise, we spent 3 nights at the Airbnb. It was fun being in the center of town. Our first trip, we only spent a couple hours in Reykjavik, so this filled a hole in our previous itinerary. DH didn’t come on the cruise with us and neither my mom nor I wanted to drive, so I booked private tours with Puffin Travel. They’ve since raised their prices some, but at the time, it wasn’t much more than booking big bus tours for 4 people. Run by an Icelandic husband and wife team, they were great from booking to the actual tour. We learned a lot about Iceland’s history, culture, and geology. I could ask questions to my heart’s content lol. The tours were long days though, so I missed our first trip when DH drove, and we moved from place to place.
One day we did a tour of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. It’s so beautiful there. I’d like to go back with DH and self-drive at a slower pace. One stop was the Shark Museum where we tasted some fermented shark. The ammonia taste is very strong!
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Fermented shark drying:
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The other tour we did was to the Westman Islands. I had no idea until our tour guide told us, but it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the Eldfell volcano eruption stopping. He was living on the island at the time and his sister’s house is buried under the lava. It was so interesting learning about what happened from someone who was there on such an anniversary. The usual sleepy town was filled with people celebrating, where our tour guide ran into friends and his daughter.
We saw so many puffins there. We saw many flying around and there was even a flock in the water. They were pretty far though, so hard to take pictures.
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