A day in Reykjavik

Hello everyone! My name is Sara and I am gonna share with you my day in Reykjavík, Iceland.

I start my day at 08:30am at Hótel Klettur.

They have a very nice continental buffet breakfast for1800 ISK1800 ISKwhich is quite cheap for Reykjavík.

There’s porridge, cereals, dried fruit, fresh fruit, cheese, meat and marinated herring, bread and pastries, juice, tea and coffee.

After eating to my heart‘s content I head down the street to Hlemmur Mathöll.

(Picture from Vísir)

Hlemmur Mathöll is a renovated, brought-back-to-life food court and bus terminal in central Reykjavík. It’s become a very popular spot for locals to grab a bite. It has a hipster vibe, and many restaurants inside have great reviews on TripAdvisor.

My next destination is Laugardalslaug swimming pool. I take bus number 14 from Hlemmur.
470 ISK470 ISKfor a one-way ticket, cash only.

Public pools in Iceland are cheap, well-maintained and super relaxing!

Laugardalslaug’s pool has an Olympic swimming pool, 3 family swimming pools and around 4-5 hot tubs with temperatures ranging from 38 to 45 degrees Celsius. It also has a sea-water tub, a cold tub and a steam bath. They are open all day long and you can rent towels and swimsuits there too.

Admission costs only 1000 ISK1000 ISK

(Picture from WhatsOn.is)

Swimming pools are the meeting point for many locals in Iceland, most of them are outdoors and use natural geothermal water that is pumped from streams down below.

I always start at the 43°C hot tub, then visit the steam bath for a while and then switch between the 38°C and 45°C hot tubs. Once my body is really warm I go to the cold pot (5°C) for around 5 minutes. After a while I like to chill at the sea-water tub where I can meditate and re-adjust my body temperature.

The cold pot culture is strong in Iceland, people use it even in the winter time. It is believed that bathing in ice-cold water can strengthen your immune system and tolerance to the cold weather outside. There are people that even go swim in the sea!!

After a very calm pool session I go back to the changing room. Important!: in Iceland there are female and male only changing rooms. Once inside, everybody must take all of their clothes off in a common room and shower in a common shower in front of each other. Icelanders are not shy!

Once I’m out of the pool I take the bus back to Hlemmur Mathöll.
470 ISK470 ISK

It’s now around 1pm. Back in the food-court I buy a Matcha latte and a double cappuccino.
1490 ISK1490 ISKat Te og Kaffi (a popular coffee shop branch).

And a croissant from Braud&Co (they have amazing pastries!!).
390 ISK390 ISK

After this delicious lunch/snack I head back to Hótel Klettur, which is my pick-up location for the tour “Inside the Volcano”.

This tour came highly recommended by a friend so I decided to book it.
44,000 ISK44,000 ISKwhich is not unusual for Iceland.

The duration is between 5-6 hours with transportation and it includes a hike up to a volcano, a descent of 120m down this volcano on an elevator, a walk inside the chamber and return (you don’t wanna be left down there, lol).

The company in charge of picking me up is Gray Line Iceland. They pick me up right in front of the door at Hótel Klettur and take us directly to the “Inside the Volcano” headquarters in the countryside. The ride takes around 30 minutes. Once there we’re offered refreshments and we start getting ready for a hike of 3.5km up to a cabin by the crater.

When in Iceland I cannot emphasise enough the need for waterproof clothing!! The weather is very unreliable and it changes many times throughout the day. The staff at “Inside the Volcano” kindly offered us big raincoats since today is a very rainy day.

Here are some pictures of the walk:


The walk takes us through a breath-taking lava field. The large amount of minerals in the ground reflects shades of red, yellow and white among the rocks.

There are many rocks with circular markings on them as proof of the overlapping of different lava flows from a volcano that erupted many hundreds of years ago.

After a long walk in the rain we finally reach the cabin. There we meet our guide for the afternoon and they explain the tour inside the volcano in more detail. We are given a helmet and harness.

And we got the rare privilege of seeing an arctic fox!

Arctic foxes are the only animals (apart from birds) native to Iceland. Apparently they got here many hundreds of years ago during the last Ice Age and got stranded once all the ice melted. If you would like to know more about this amazing animal I recommend this article from guidetoiceland.is https://guidetoiceland.is/nature-info/the-arctic-fox.

After getting all ready we need to hike a little more up the volcanic crater to a cavity on the top.

The hike up is particularly beautiful.


Once in the summit, we walk close to an opening where an elevator will take us deep inside the volcano. The descent is 120m on a specially modified elevator. It has wheels on the side so it can slide down through the rocks on the tightest part of the cavity.

The guide told us the idea of this tour and elevator came about when National Geographic decided to make a documentary on volcanoes and travelled to Iceland. They heard about this unique volcano in which there was an opening to an intact magma chamber. It is then that they contacted a group of local engineers and had them build the first elevator to take reporters down and where they discovered the intrinsic value of this natural marvel.

(Picture from insidethevolcano.com)

After securing us to the elevator with a harness, we start the descent. It is impressive! The motion of the elevator and its engineering, the darkness underneath us! And once the elevator passes the narrowest point at the top, there is more light and the different colours and textures start showing.

The guide explains the origin of the different layers in the volcano and how the eruption process started. By looking around I notice many of the common volcanic shapes and colours that are found all throughout Iceland, whose origin is precisely lava. The island has 31 volcanoes of which 18 have erupted since it was settled between the 8-9th century.

Once inside, we are given 30 minutes to wander around and take pictures. The beauty of this place is outstanding. For me it is particularly exciting to be here, inside a natural marvel that allows us to behold the antiquity and power of the creation of our planet.

Unfortunately, after a while of wandering around the battery of my phone is drained because of the high humidity inside the cave. (I recommend bringing waterproof cameras, Go-Pros, or the very least using a waterproof cover for your devices).

So I have had to resort to online sources to find a better picture. Here I leave one more picture of the inside from their website so you get an idea of how it big it is. (Picture from insidethevolcano.com).


This is the last picture I managed to take before my phone died lol. I was trying to find the right spot for a selfie but I accidentally shot the camera and my phone gave up.

After a while walking around the interior we ascended, hiked back to the cabin and were treated to a very delicious vegetable soup and refreshments. They also offered Icelandic meat soup. The Icelandic diet consists mostly of fish, meat and starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Some of the most famous delicacies include fermented shark, sheep head, horse meat, dried fish and whale and puffin meat!

After this break we got our raincoats and hiked back to the headquarters. We were then picked up and taken to our accommodations.

I was quite tired so instead of hunting for dinner somewhere lol, I just bought a salmon sandwich from reception.
1150 ISK1150 ISK

And after a very hot shower and warm cup of tea this weary traveller went to sleep.

Thank you for reading this story.

Total spent: 78860 ISK78860 ISK