THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2025 // Day 7
With 12 out of our group of 20 heading home today, we were now down to 8 adventurers for the extension of our trip.
We left Reykjavík at 9:30A to head west towards Húsafell. An hour or so in we stopped at Snorri Sturluson’s home, Snorrastofa. Snorri was an Icelandic writer who was killed in 1241. It is one of the main historical sites in Iceland as it was an important political center. Snorri's family was rich and powerful and was trying to take over Iceland as king. Snorri himself had no interest in politics, only writing. The Norweigian king was fighting with his family politically and his people were the ones who killed Snorri. At one point there was a boarding school on the premises. The dorms were designed to be used as dormitories during the school year, and hotels during the two months of tourism in the summer. Now they are just used as hotels.
Back on the bus, Osk told us about the importance of first names in Ireland, also known as your christian name. When a baby is born, a committee of names has to approve your given name. Last names came from the father’s first name - either nameson or namedóttir.
I also learned that there is a fear of the Icelandic language dying out because not many people speak it. Something fun is that Iceland has a word contest to create names for new inventions.
From there we drove to Hraunfossar and Barnafoss waterfalls. There was a lunch buffet option, but none of it looked good to me. Osk had told us that the waterfalls here were different than any we had seen so far. I couldn’t imagine how different a waterfall could be. Well, she was right! One part was full of swirling rapids, weaving in and out of all the rock, pooling in some places. It flowed down, down, down multiple sections of “falls.” Another section was a continuation of the river from the first set of falls that had tons of “mini falls” flowing into it. Wow that was awesome!
Our hotel, Hotel Husafell, was less than 10 minutes from here, so we headed there next to get checked in. Since Aaron and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, we ate at the bistro near the hotel. I ordered a Cesar salad because I needed something that was as far from fish as possible. It ended up being romaine lettuce mixed the cesar dressing, with slices of grilled chicken place in a single layer on top of the lettuce. Then holy moly, it was cheesy!! Because of the chicken, the layer of cheese was melted right on top, sprinkled wiht bacon and croutons. Not as refreshing as I wanted, but definitely delicious!
At 3, we met back up with the group to ride a giant off-road bus up to the glacier. Y’all, this bus ride…for starters, the driver was fabulous. We are literally driving up mountains that are pure rock, minus the path carved out by driving over it. The dust was coming in and made it hard for me to breathe, but everyone else seemed to be fine, so I’m probably just dramatic. The ride was so bumpy all I could think was thank goodness Sarah did not stay, this would be making her so sick!
After the 30 minute ride up the mountain, we hopped off that tank and hopped into another. This new one was an old German military vehicle. It took us up the actual glacier, which was wildly impressive. I mean this thing is a mix of ice and snow, with little streams running down the lower portion. There were massive holes and crevices that the driver needed to either navigate through or around. It was really neat to see.
When we got towards the top of Langjökull Glacier, we stopped and got out. This glacier is named so because “lang” means “long” and this is the second largest glacier in Europe. They split the passengers of the tank into two groups - ours headed into the glacier first. The first bit was quite slippery! Luckily we stopped in one of the ice cave rooms and put crampons on over our boots - this made the walk much easier.
The ice tunnel was dug into the glacier beginning in 2015 and opened in 2016. There is a little ice chapel in the back of it that is open for weddings in the winter! Due to it being summer, there was a lot of dripping of water taking place - water even came through from the surface!
To get back down the glacier/mountain, we took the reverse of what we had done to get up there. I had my first (and only 🤞🏼) migraine of the trip, so I spent the next hour and a half in my room until we had dinner with the group in the hotel restaurant.
Our starter was a sea food soup. I took two bites and that was all I could manage - it was far too fishy tasting for my tastebuds. Our main dish was much more my taste - lamb, a stuffing ball, small salad, and grilled carrot. Dessert was Skyr (similar to yogurt) topped with berries and mandarin sorbet. They are all about their sorbet in Iceland and I am here for it!
ICYMI
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