I ran out of steam with my previous posting and took a long break from any new posts. Hopefully I can get back on track and finish our trip, which now was over 3 months ago. Here’s hoping!
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I’m starting to sound like a broken record but we again decided to rent a car for our last port in Akureyri. Akureyri is at the base of Eyjafjörður Fjord in northern Iceland. Luckily I was able to make a car reservation from my phone before we left Ísafjörður. The water was fairly active on the way to Akureyri but turned foggy upon arrival in port.
They do like their hatchbacks in Iceland (and Europe). Here’s our little Kia that we used to traipse around the countryside.
The town of Akureyri was actually a decent size but again most of the sights recommended required a decent drive outta town. We did end up having some time to explore Akureyri after we returned from our road trip.
Our first stop was Goðafoss waterfall (pronounced Goda-foss). This translates to “waterfall of the gods.” Of the waterfalls that we visited on the trip, this was my favorite. There was a small visitor’s center and then you made a short hike over to the location of the falls (there was an option to go on either side of the falls). We stuck to the near side of the waterfall. Once we arrived closer, you could also walk down a short steep path so you were at base level of the falls or you could take the higher route and look down on the falls from above. We ended up doing both.
After the falls we continued our trek eastwards towards Lake Mývatn. This large lake actually had multiple areas of interest to stop and see. The weather was a bit on the chillier side (as well as very windy is certain parts) so we limited our “out of car” time and maybe didn’t see as much as we could have.
Our second stop was at Námafjall Geothermal Area and more specifically at Hverir. This is an area of bubbling pools of mud and steaming fumaroles emitting sulfuric gas. The whole area smelled like rotten eggs. It was extremely windy and cool in this area so we basically hopped out and snapped some shots and then were on our way.
We continued down the eastern side of Lake Myvatn on the 848 (we had taken route 1 along the western and northern side of the lake). This is a two lane road that skirts along the edges of the water giving you a nice view of the lake. In the distance we could see Hverfjall, which is a volcano.
We saw a beautiful white horse hanging out right by the roadside. After we had driven past, D had said she wanted to get some pics with the horse and seeing as we had time, I flipped a U-ey and we made our way back to the horse and did a quick photo shoot. In her words, “it was majestic AF.”
As we made our way around Lake Myvatn, we came to Skútustaðagígar, which are pseudocraters. It was a bit chilly at this time so we made a quick stop, walked out a little bit to look at these craters and then hopped back in the car and made our way back to town.
Once we arrived back in town my parents wanted to check out the big Akureyri church. 
Since it was not that far from the boat my parents said they’d just walk back to the boat while Deborah and I continued to explore the town a little more. We stopped in at a famous coffeehouse, Bláa kannan café. Deborah had some soup and we both had some tasty heart-warming coffee. This cafe is located on a little walkable street with many shops and other restaurants. I decided to try out an Akureyri hot dog (and see how it compared to the one we had in Reykjavik. The Akureyri dog had all the same things as the one in Reykjavik but with added red cabbage. It was good, a nice little snack.
Afterward we headed back to the boat – the time to get back on the ship was earlier than the other ports because we had a long 2 days of sailing ahead to make it to Norway.
Next up: Norway!
-StewsCat
StewsCat 