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It’s about an 8 1/2 hour flight from SFO. Our flight landed around 6:30am local time on Sunday. While on the plane, I read something in the travel book that disturbed me. It said that most rental cars in Iceland are manual transmission, which I’ve never driven before. When we looked at our reservation, unfortunately I noticed that it said manual transmission there. At the rental car counter, they originally said we were out of luck, but eventually said that they had a car for us - but we’d have to wait an hour.
Since we didn’t really have anything else to do, we decided we’d just wait, rather than try to find something at another rental company. After an hour, we got the car, and we were off. In Iceland, people drive on the right side of the road, but the road signs are different than what we’re used to in the United States, so it took some getting used to. It’s about a 45 minute drive from the airport to the city. We passed through a mostly flat barren landscape. We did see steam rising out of the ground in the distance to our right. And eventually we could see mountains off in the distance.
Arriving in Reykyjavik around 9:30am, we found we didn’t have anything to do. Our rental house wasn’t ready yet - we couldn’t check in until 3pm. We didn’t really want to leave our bags unattended in the car, so we were kind of hamstrung for a while. We drove around a bit, eventually parking near the big church (Hallgrimskirkja). We took turns walking around, eventually getting some lunch from a local Thai place and eating it in the car.
Hallgrimskirkja
Hallgrimskirkja
Hallgrimskirkja
Leif Erikson statue
Thankfully we found out our house was ready a bit early, and we were able to check in a bit before 2pm.
After a bit of rest, we walked along Laugavegur Road (a popular area with shops and restaurants) briefly before having dinner at a fish and chips place.
We then discovered that we were close to the church, so we walked over and into the church to visit. Then some ice cream at busy Valdis.
Hallgrimskirkja
Hallgrimskirkja organ
Inside Hallgrimskirkja
Hallgrimskirkja organ
Though the sun set just after 11pm, it never got completely dark.
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