Hello, Iceland!

We were up at 6:00am this morning, and our hosts in England drove us to Hereford train station. Our train arrived and departed right on time, and by 8:00am we were watching the green English countryside wizz by.

Changed trains once, and the second train arrived right at Manchester airport. How simple is that!? We had to sit around for a couple of hours, but we find that time spent waiting in airports goes by fairly quickly and this time was no different. Our flight to Iceland left right on time.

The plane was only about half full, so we had a row to ourselves, and in fact the row opposite us was totally empty too. But then tourist season in Iceland ended at the end of September. One of the reasons we decided to come here now is that prices for a lot of tourist related things are cheaper after September 30.

Kind of a neat picture out the window looking down on the north Atlantic.

We landed right on time, around 3:00pm local time. The main international airport is actually at the town of Keflavik, 45 minutes from Reykjavik. We took the FlyBus Plus service that takes you from the airport directly to your hotel. It's fairly expensive. But then we've been told that everything in Iceland is expensive. Cost is 2500 Icelandic Kronas ($20.00) per person for the one way trip. Or, you can also buy a round trip ticket for 4500 Kronas ($36.00) per person. This is really the only logical way to get to Reykjavik if you're not renting a car. You could walk from the airport to the town of Keflavik and then take the local bus for cheaper money, but it's about a 45 minute walk across barren land and I'll tell you, we're glad we didn't attempt that.

Why?

Because while it's about 5C (41F), the wind will just about blow you over. Just walking to the bus was chilly, so we are glad we had the FlyBus tickets!

Barren windswept land on the way to Reykjavik.

Made it to our hotel and got set up there. I'll do a separate post about that later. But one thing I'll share is that we were lucky enough to get a fifth floor room and we have a bit of a view.

View from our hotel room.

Then we went for a quick walk, just to pick up our 72 hour Reykjavik cards from the tourists office and a stop at the grocery store for some snacks and makings for lunch tomorrow.

We have the morning free tomorrow, but after that we are going whale watching with Elding, Adventures at Sea! Can't wait for that, it's a three to five hour tour and they've been seeing a lot of whales the last few days. Should be very exciting!

Okay, gotta cut this short and go get some dinner.

First impressions of Iceland? Barren, windy, and cold. But I also see the potential for some fantastic photographs. The clouds themselves are amazingly different. We're going to make the most of the next five days and I think you're in for an exciting adventure with us!

Kevin, very happy that he bought a new coat!