Category Archives: Travel

Posts dealing with travel, holidays, hotels and flights, exploring different countries, cultures and languages

The art of cheap holidays: Part 2

In my previous post about the art of cheap holidays I mentioned taking my daughter away in the peak holiday season.

Package holidays, and indeed, flights and hotel prices, are significantly inflated at this time of year. Finding a cheap holiday is not easy.

Yet I managed to save significantly, and still have a fabulous holiday.

I had an available date range of several weeks. I knew we wanted somewhere warm. I knew that we wanted a pool, and to be near a beach.

I also knew that we should find something self catering. Previous experience has taught me that my daughter is quite happy to wake up and play/draw for an hour or two before eating breakfast and wanting to go out to the pool/beach etc. I’m also no longer hungry first thing in the morning, so there’s absolutely no point having to get up early and rush to get to breakfast in a hotel serving at limited times. Similarly, hotel food is at best average, and I prefer the holiday atmosphere of going out in the evening for a meal. Having self catering facilities means we can save ourselves money on breakfast and lunch and eat when we want. If the evening eating out options also prove to be poor or expensive, we can also eat in on the occasional evening.

Think about what you really want for your holiday. Do you really need a pool? Are you going to eat out? Do you need to be on the beach? If you’re only going for a day or two, and staying in the town, do you need a car? Don’t spend extra money on a hotel with a pool if you’re going to be at the beach all day and not use it.

After scouring the web for flights, mainly using Skyscanner and checking the cheap airlines such as Ryanair, Flybe and Easyjet, I had found quite a few reasonably priced flights to various destinations in Portugal, Spain, the south of France, Italy, Turkey and Greece. Some I ruled out due to the flights out being from tricky to reach airports, or flying to destinations where I’d then have to travel for hours to get to the final destination. Others were ticked off because of inconvenient flight times; travelling with a six year old at 4am is a pain. Similarly the longer flights (4 hours to some Greek islands, Canaries etc) weren’t ideal, especially if they weren’t flying from a local airport.

Eventually I had a choice of 5 Spainish destinations, a Greek and a Turkish destination.

I started looking for hotels.

The Greek island hotels were few and far between; anything any good had already been booked up, long in advance (school holiday period remember!). The remaining hotels were shabby, miles from anywhere, or extortionately priced.

Next stop, Turkey. Hotels seemed to be very well priced. But I didn’t know much about the resorts and it wasn’t clear if there were in a reasonable location and easy to reach from the airport. More research would be required, but the flight times and flight prices weren’t great and I decided to put this on the back burner.

I decided to look at the Spanish options. This had the cheapest flight prices by far, but I soon discovered hotel prices were significantly more than in Turkey. However, I knew more about the region and where to look and with the cheaper flights managed to find something suitable at a similar total price.

There were 3 good flight options available to the Barcelona area; Barcelona’s direct airport; El Prat, Girona to the north, and Reus to the south. I didn’t know so much about the other airport options/areas, and a quick search didn’t yield many hotel options.

I decided to focus my hotel search on the Costa Brava, reachable from the 3 airports around Barcelona.

Normally I would book a minimum of a 3 star hotel and wouldn’t even consider a 1 or 2 star. When I travel with my girlfriend we tend to look for 4 stars to ensure we have the comfort of a double bed – there’s not many 3 stars with a ‘proper’ double bed we’ve found. With my daughter though obviously we were after two singles so I started checking the 3 stars and above hotels.

Due to the 3 airport options, I had a broad search area, but the summer holiday popularity had taken it’s toll on the accommodation available. Particularly as I was adamant on the self catering option.

There were plenty of hotels in Barcelona itself available for a good price. But most didn’t have a pool – essential for my daughter – or a balcony – essential for me in the evenings to escape to with a book and a glass of wine after she’d gone to bed. Nor were any self catering.

I found a few options in the coastal resorts but they were considerably expensive. I then found a handful of B&B or even half board hotel options that were a similar price, or not much more – especially when you considered the cost of the food.

I was tempted to book one of these, but I always like to check the reviews online first, such as via TripAdvisor.

Now, you have to read between the lines sometimes with these reviews. There’s always going to be some miserable sod that moans about everything. Or someone that sets their expectations too high, or complains for some reason that’s not relevant to yourself. But on reading these reviews, I was not convinced at all by the food offered at the hotels.

I did some more digging and tried a few more hotel websites. My favourites are Hotels.comVenere.comLastMinute.com, Expedia.com and LateRooms.com. You can usually get between 5 and 13 percent cashback from TopCashBack; Venere being one of the best recently.

Booking.com is also good but doesn’t tend to be on the cashback sites anymore, although you can sometimes found vouchers – another money saving tip; google ‘vouchers’ or ‘coupons’ for hotels (or any product you are planning to buy online) and you can often get a significant discount at the checkout.

Other popular sites are Expedia, ebookers, Hotels4U – most of which have cash-back offers on TopCashBack.

On one of my searches I forgot to tick the star rating.

A self catering hotel in Tossa De Mar, the GHT Tossa Apartments, showed up, at a reasonable price.

Why hadn’t I seen this one before?

Oh – because it’s a 2 star hotel.

But it looked nice… I read a little more.

It sounded ideal.

  • Nice town: check (I would definitely visit Tossa De Mar again; great restaurants, beach, castle etc)
  • Pool: check
  • Close to airport: check (35 min drive from Girona airport)
  • Close to beach: check (15 min walk, more or less flat)
  • Self catering: check
  • Balcony: check

Ok, so it’s only a 2 star hotel. What does that mean?

Often it means no pool, or no balcony, or a lack of facilities – for example, no ensuite bathroom.

This seemed to have everything. So perhaps it was tiny, or falling apart, or cockroach infested?

Nope.

According to the reviews, the vast majority of which were positive, it was a very good hotel, with a great pool and good facilities, and several people said they couldn’t understand why it wasn’t a 3 star. The main reason seemed to be the room cleaning service.

There wasn’t one.

Well, not as standard. If you stayed a week, the cleaners visited once – to replace the towels.

But not the bedding. Nor did they clean.

If you wanted the room cleaned, you had to pay extra.

Well… that’s fair enough. You don’t need new towels everyday, nor do you require the room cleaning so regularly. I was sure the bedding could last us one week. If we needed the service, we could pay for it; I can’t recall the cost exact now, but I do recall it being very reasonable.

I also find it quite annoying when the cleaners turn up and you’re still in your room, or when you come back from somewhere to find the cleaners half way through and you have to hang around.

So I could handle not having cleaners. Was that the only negative?

From the info I could find, yes.

I decided to book a week at the GHT Tossa Apartments.

And didn’t regret it! We had a great holiday. Ok, the room wasn’t huge – it was a studio rather than an apartment, so it was just two sofa beds – and a third could be pulled out from under one of them – but that was all we needed. There was a good size balcony with three chairs and a table and a nice pool view. The bathroom was nothing special but it was large enough with a decent bath, there was even a bidet. There was a brush and dustpan and mop and bucket so we were able to keep the room clean ourselves.

The room also had aircon!

I was expecting the kitchen facilities to be basic. They were; but better than some 3 or even 4 star self catering hotels I’ve stayed in. There was the usual basic two hob electric cooker; which took ages to warm up. Fair enough. But there was a full sized and well chilled fridge, a microwave, plenty of plates and cutlery including a chopping board and a juicer/squeezer. There was even a kettle in the cupboard!

There was no bottle opener, which was a shame, but I certainly hadn’t expected one.

The staff were friendly and helpful, the lifts worked, the place was clean and bright, the wi-fi connection was reasonable and at no extra charge, the pool was large and just about warm enough, and had a life guard on duty… perfect!

Ok, car parking was awful, I have to admit that. The whole of Tossa De Mar was just crammed with parked cars. The hotel did apparently offer car parking but I believe it was 15 Euro a day… no thanks. We spotted a car park down the road for 5 Euros a day. In the end we just drove around for 10 mins until we finally found somewhere; it was a good 20 mins walk back though! Still, can’t really blame the hotel for that.

So, my new money saving tip, which I hadn’t considered before: look at 2 star hotels too. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Top money saving tip: Once you’ve found the ideal hotel to stay in, check it’s price on a few different websites; it can vary a lot. Even try the official hotel site – sometimes they have special offers. Don’t forget to check the cashback sites too such as TopCashBack or Quidco – you may find a hotel for £80 on one site but the more expensive site charging £85 is offering 15% cashback via TopCashBack, so it’s actually cheaper at just over £72.

Over time this can add up significantly – I’ve literally saved over a £1000 with TopCashBack over the years.

In my next post I will talk about airport car parking and other ways to save money on your holiday cost.

The art of cheap holidays: Part 1

My work colleagues, friends and family often joke that I always seem to be on holiday. Do I ever do any work? they ask.

Yes I do. I just choose to take more frequent, short holidays, rather than one or two long ones.

Most people will take a couple of main holidays a year; maybe a two week break in summer and a one to two week break in spring or autumn. They’ll squeeze in a long weekend or two. Perhaps they’ll take off a few days around Christmas. Most UK employees have a holiday allowance of around 22-26 days a year, and won’t have any issues using these up.

These can often be very expensive holidays, especially where families are involved and holidays are taken during the school holiday period. Most people just shrug their shoulders at the expense and justify their 2 week holiday as being a ‘once a year treat’.

The same people ask me how I can afford to go away 10 times a year.

In my case, the holidays are usually only 4 or 5 days long; or just extended weekends. And they are carefully chosen, with much research and planning in advance.

Admittedly these holidays do often add up to more days off per year than the average family, maybe adding up to more like 30, 35 days, but I make the most of weekends and bank holidays. I also usually work on the days around Christmas & New Years (not on the actual holiday days though) as it’s usually quiet in the office, the traffic on the roads is reduced, and I don’t see the point wasting those days to sit around at home (as most do at that time of year) when I can save my holidays for a better time.

Cost wise my 35 odd days are probably similar too to the average holiday maker, if not less.

For a start, I tend to avoid package holidays, and look for cheap flights and find the accomodation and transfers separately. Yes, package holidays can sometimes be cheaper, but they are normally 7 or 14 day holidays, and somewhat restrictive on flight times/destinations. When you look for 4-5 day long holidays, there’s very little package options, and what you do find isn’t cheap.

Looking for individual flights means you can match your availability better and make the most of the time you have available. In my case, for many years I’ve worked as an IT Contractor. This has meant that days I don’t work – I don’t get paid. For example, say there’s a bank holiday Monday, on which I’m not expected to work. To not loose out on any days pay, I want to take the holiday Sat, Sun and Mon. Flights are more expensive on the Saturday and Bank Holiday though. I accept that I will loose one days pay, and find flights that fly locally approximately 2 hours after I finish work (and try and arrange to leave early that day) on the Friday, and that come back Tuesday evening or even early hours of Wednesday. Therefore I get a 4 day holiday and I’ve only had to have 1 unpaid day off work. If I’d chose a package holiday I would have struggled to find such specific time requirements and it would have cost me more through lost work days.

Another trick is to not even have a specific destination in mind. Be open to all travel possibilities!

The cheap airlines are the first place to start – Ryanair, Easyjet, Flybe, Jet2 and WizzAir. Open up their destination maps and see what they have to offer. Where do you want to fly from? If you are limited on time, consider local airports only. However, don’t just dimiss an airport because it’s not nearby; it’s worth checking if there’s a convenient train or bus. I for example generally avoid the London airports as they are a pain to get to from the Midlands, especially in terms of unpredicatable traffic – you don’t want to miss your flight! EMA is the closest for me from Nottingham, but Birmingham can be reached in around 45 minutes too. The train isn’t great though as you have to go into New Street first before going back out to the airport; neither is Luton great on the train as you don’t actually get a train to the airport, but Luton Parkway – you then have to wait for a shuttle  bus that takes 10-15 minutes to transfer you to the airport – and it runs every 10-15 minutes, which adds up the travel time. I can drive there in under 2 hours, although it’s not a fun slog down the roadwork strewn M1 to be honest.

If it’s a short weekend away, there’s no point travelling for hours to an airport; you’re loosing out on valuable holiday time. Similarly, check how far it is on the other side to your final destination. Malaga is one of my favourite destinations; you can easily get a train or a bus directly to Torremilinos/Benalmadena, or even a taxi for a not too extortionate price. Take care when flying to Tenerife – most resorts are on the south of the island so make sure you choose the right airport; the one of the north of the island is a considerable distance from those southern resorts!

I often get a hire car from the airport if I’m going away for more than 3 days; the cost of car rental for three plus days is often the same as or sometimes even less than taxi costs or transfers. Taxi prices from airports are always horrendous. If you don’t want to hire a car, check out the various transfer offers available. You can cut costs by having a shared transfer (usually in the form of a mini bus), but beware: there may be delays at the airport whilst waiting for other passengers to arrive, as well as delays in being delivered to your hotel due to an indirect route to drop off those other holiday makers.

Also check your hotel; they sometimes offer a free transfer service from the airport.

Going back to car hire, be particularly careful in Spain (other countries may also operate in a similar manner); lots of hire cars tend to have a ‘return empty’/’full-empty’ fuel policy. The idea is that they give you a car full of petrol – and you pay for this when you collect your car – and you return it empty. Note that this is charged at an inflated cost to cover their refilling ‘service’. The worst part is though that if you don’t use all the petrol in the tank – and no-one’s ever going to return it completely empty for risk of running out of fuel, and most people simply won’t use that much fuel anyway – then you’ve paid for all that fuel for nothing; there’s no refund. I got caught out once on a 5 day trip in the Canaries. I got stung with a charge of something like 76 Euros for a full tank of fuel on arrival (it probably would have cost closer to 60 Euros if I’d purchased it myself); and I had no intention of using it. I only used the car to drive from the airport to my hotel, and back again 5 days later – it was much more convenient than a transfer and cheaper than a taxi; at least I’d thought it was, but with the fuel charges, it wasn’t.

Now I look for ‘full-full’ policies; the idea being that you don’t pay for the fuel but make sure you return it full, therefore only paying for any fuel you’ve actually used – topping up just before returning. Most car hire companies offer this fuel policy when the car hire is for 3 days or less, just watch out if you want the car for longer. I recently hired a car with FireFly in Spain via Arguscarhire.com with a slightly different fuel policy; the car was supplied with a full tank of fuel which I paid for (which of course came with an inflated price), and when I returned the car they supposedly refunded any petrol left in the tank back to me – minus a service charge, of course.

They didn’t say what the charge is and I’ve only just returned so I’m still waiting to see what I’ll get back… However, this was one of the better deals at the time for a week long hire and there was also a great cashback offer via TopCashBack so I decided to risk it.

You might find some great prices for hire cars with the ‘full-empty’ fuel policy, but if you’re not planning to use all that fuel, then the initially more expensive seeming hire cars with the ‘full-full’ fuel policy might work out cheaper.

Returning to flights, it’s also worth checking SkyScanner (http://www.skyscanner.net)- especially if you have a specific flight destination or dates in mind. We have had a few short (4 day) breaks recently with tight deadlines to get out & return in, but with open minds as to where we wanted to go; so we entered the dates, chose all UK airports, any destination, ticked the ‘prefer directs’, and waited for the results. We then opened a new browser tab for each of the UK airports that were accessible for us, and then looked at the destinations. It took some time and narrowing down but we eventually found some perfect flights to Ibiza and had one of the most enjoyable breaks we have had for some time.

Don’t be afraid to fly out with one airline and back with another – why not? Just be careful of baggage policies; Ryanair allows a large bag onboard (and now a second small bag) but Wizzair only a allow a tiny bag onboard, so don’t get caught out!

Also, don’t restrict yourself to flying out from and back to the same airport – if it’s convenient or cheaper to return to a different airport, why not? Although if you are planning to travel by car to the airport don’t leave it at one airport and leave yourself stranded on the way home! Check transport options to see if it’s viable. There’s no point flying out from Plymouth and opting for the £30 cheaper flight home to Edinburgh when it’s going to cost you £100 in train fares (and not to mention time) to get home.

Alternate airports & airlines can be a good option though. For example, recently my girlfriend flew out to Krakow directly from East Midlands (having got there via a taxi) with Ryanair a day before me to sort out some business; I flew the next day after work from Luton (having drove there) to Katowice with Wizzair. She picked me up from the airport and drove me to Krakow (just over an hours drive) and we had a nice weekend there at a friend wedding, then had a friend drive us back to Katowice and we flew back to Luton and drove home together. The times and prices of these flights, not to mention the fact that I would have lost paid days work, were much better options than if we’d flown direct at the same time.

I also try to avoid school holidays to save on the price of holidays, but having a six year old daughter, it’s not always possible. I try and take her away for long weekends when I can and away in the UK during summer holidays, but did take her to Spain for a week this summer break. It wasn’t cheap, but I still managed to save a lot of money by looking around. I had a choice of several weeks, and was happy to go anywhere warm. More on this in my next post.

Yes it’s time consuming doing all this research and planning. But I enjoy it. It’s become almost a hobby. And as I’ve been doing it for so long now, I know where to look, and what I like.

In the next post I will advise on finding the perfect hotel.

Iceland Trip Part 2: Ice Ice Baby

We woke up on the second day of our short trip to glorious Icelandic sunshine.

Checking out of the hotel, we wandered across the road to visited the geysers Strokkur and Geysir.

The English word Geyser actually comes from Geysir; this geyser only erupts infrequently and can often stop for years, but when
it does can spray water up to 70 meters high.

We’d been told that Strokkur would erupt every 8 minutes. In reality though, this can vary.

Walking towards the geysir, we saw it erupt in the distance but weren’t quick enough to take a snap. Not expecting it to fire
again for 8 minutes, we were unprepared when it erupted quickly twice more.

When we arrived we took up camera positions opposite the steaming hole and waited.

You could feel the tension in the air. Tourists lined up with cameras at the ready, trying to get the perfect spot. A group of British teenage girls babbled inanities behind me.

10 minutes later, she still hadn’t blown.

There were complaints of “my arm is aching” and “I’ve been waiting here years now” from behind.

Clouds of steam and the smell of sulphur wafted past us. My poor joke of “ah, the eggs are ready” went unappreciated by my girlfriend.

Then a chorus from the rear of the popular childhood song “Why are we waiting“.

Suddenly Strokkur bubbled loudly, and a burst of water spurted anti climatically a few feet into the air and subsided.

There were groans of disappointment from the dejected schoolgirls.

However, the next eruption, approximately 9 minutes later, was spectacular.

Strokkur geyser erupts
Strokkur geyser erupts

There was no warning either. Strokkur shot water 10 meters (33 feet) into the air, soaking those that had stood too close with water, amid screams of surprise and joy.

I’d managed to snap a couple of satisfactory shots and time was ticking, so we headed off on the short (10 mins or so) drive to
the waterfall at Selfoss.

Waterfalls at Selfoss
Waterfalls at Selfoss

 

The waterfall is actually a series of waterfalls, Selfoss itself being 11m high, before joining Dettifoss which is apparently the most powerful waterfall in Europe; the river falls 44m over a width of 100m.

The waters are formed by the melting glacier Vatnajökull.

For the first time on our visit, we saw ice – the Langjökull glacier could be just seen in the distance.

We now had a long drive ahead of us. One of the more spectacular sites in south Iceland is the ice lagoon at Jökulsárlón and we
were determined to see it, despite the 4 hour predicted drive.

The maximum speed limit in Iceland is 90kmph, and although we had noted roadside police and speed cameras on the outskirts of the
capital Reykjavik, we hadn’t seen any since (despite a few speed camera signs on the main road ‘1’ from Selfoss towards Vik and
Jökulsárlón there weren’t any devices apparent) and most people seemed to be driving at around 120kmph (75mph). Although the 1 is
a single carriageway (aside from a few overtaking areas on hills) it is very smooth and in good condition (apart from a few spots
where the sides were gradually starting to crumble away into gravel) and with very little traffic on it – we only saw one lorry
in the whole two days, and a couple of tractors – we made good progress.

Petrol stations are few are far between in Iceland, so seeing that we had only half a tank left and spotting a self service (pay
by card at machine) pump just after joining the ‘1’ after leaving the ’30’, we decided to top up our little Hyundai i20 hire car
(hired with our usual cashback by making use of the TopCashBack site).

Just a note here – roads marked ‘F’ are for off road vehicles only. 4×4 / SUVs can be expensive to hire and as we were only there
for the weekend we had opted for a standard car and to avoid these roads. Nonetheless, cutting across country from Gulfoss to
Flúðir had entailed driving down some more basic gravel roads. The car hadn’t struggled at all but we’d been wary of flying gravel. Our hire car was in good shape but had a few paint chips already on the bumper and the damage report on check out had marked these along with a side note ‘gravel damage on bumper’, but just be careful with this as they can be quite strict and it’s easy to damage a vehicle with all that loose gravel, especially if another car comes whizzing by at high speed.

We had intended breaking up the long drive by stopping at the waterfall at Seljalandsfoss and locating the hot springs just
beyond at Seljavallalaug, near Skógafoss.

However, we’d woken later than planned and stayed longer waiting for Strokkur’s eruption; so we only stopped to take a few quick
snaps of the waterfalls at Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss and not seeing any clear signs to the thermal pool at Seljavallalaug, we
sped onwards, taking in the ever changing scenery and passing Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that had erupted in 2010 causing
travel chaos due to it’s ash clouds.

One moment we’d see rolling green fields and hills; the next it would be completely flat black earth. After half an hour it would
suddenly change to rounded boulders covered with moss and lichen; it reminded me of the trolls from Disney’s Frozen.

Perhaps this is were the fabled elves lived!

Apparently, more than half of the Icelandic people believe in the existence or possible existence of ‘the hidden people’ –
Huldufolk. There’s an interesting article on the BBC news site here about them.

The scenery changed endless times and we admired the great open spaces, pretty farm houses and numerous waterfalls, rivers and
lakes as we passed by.

We saw the glacier’s of Tindfjallajökull and Eyjafjallajökull nestling amongst the mountains to our right.

Black beach at Dyrhólaey
Black beach at Dyrhólaey

Before we got to the town of Vik, about 2.5 hours from Geysir or Reykjavik, we took the side road to Dyrhólaey to visit the
beautiful black sand beach and to look for Puffins. Unfortunately we didn’t see any, probably due to the fact that many other
tourists had decided to do the same and the spot was crowded with humanity. The lovely scenery however had been worth the detour.

We set off again and continued our long trek, now being able to glimpse the huge glacier of Vatnajökull in this distance.

Despite the magnificent backdrop, we were becoming tired and started to worry about how late it was and the fact that we had an
even longer journey back home to the airport.

We followed the endless snake of tarmac through the increasingly barren landscape, passing close to the glacier and staring in
awe at it’s majesty.

We drove on and passed black fields of lava boulders.

As we passed a small car park to our left, we glanced through the black rocks and saw a shining vista of white and blue ice.

We had arrived at the ice lagoon!

Blue ice drifts past the black sand
Blue ice drifts past the black sand

Pulling up initially at a car park on the right hand side before the bridge over the Jökulsárlón river, we pulled our aching
bodies from the car and wandering down onto the beach to watch two cow sized chunks of diamond blue ice float by on the breeze. Smaller chunks of clear ice sat on the black sands being lapped gently by the tide.

We then crossed the road and climbed the rocks to see the spectacular ice lagoon below us.

Ice lagoon
Ice lagoon

It’s hard to describe the beauty of the various shades of blue and white ice lying in the lagoon, smaller chunks floating serenely
by. I’d let the pictures do the talking but they simply don’t do the atmosphere and beauty of the place justice.

A dog takes a dip in the Ice Lagoon
A dog takes a dip in the Ice Lagoon

We stayed for some time, walking around and taking photos, but for the first time in our two days in Iceland, we were cold.

We crossed the bridge to the main car park and pulled up next to a small restaurant offering hot soup and coffee. We both went for
the seafood soup (the mushroom option didn’t look very inspiring) which was very tasty and warmed us up beautifully for the drive
back home.

Short on time but determined to at least locate the third hot spring we’d intended to visit, Seljavallalaug, I scoured the road
signs on the drive home around Skógafoss looking for the alleged dirt road towards ‘Seljavellir’.

No such sign exists and as the weather had deteriorated and the going was a little slower, decided to continue towards the airport.

However, for those wanting to visit, I have since located the site via google maps. You will go past a large U shape mountain
enclosure around a handful of buildings in the distance; turn up the 242 sign posted Raufarfell. Hotel Lambafell and guesthouse
Edinborg are also up this road. Carry straight on rather than turning right at the 242 Raufarfellsvegur sign and drive to the end
of the road. The pool is a short walk from there.

Seljavallalaug is a man made geothermal pool, fed by a natural hot spring. It was constructed in 1923 and is a 25 by 10 meter
construction in the mountainside. There are small rooms for people to leave their clothes in. The water however is apparently
only cleaned once every summer so it may look a bit dirty.

We were happy we’d managed to spend so much time at the hot spring of Hrunalaug so didn’t mind missing this one so much. We got
back to the airport bang on time.

One thing we’d missed off the typical tourist sites was the blue lagoon. I wouldn’t go as far as calling this a ‘tourist trap’
but it isn’t cheap and isn’t so natural. However, it does look rather nice and with more time could be tempted to make the most
of it with one of the more inclusive packages.

We would definitely visit again. Next time though we will stay for longer and hire a 4×4; I will also study the maps closer to
ensure we don’t miss anything!!
You can buy the Lonely Planet Iceland (Travel Guide) from Amazon.

Iceland trip Part 1: Where’s the ice?

I hadn’t expected Iceland to be so green, or so warm.

Admittedly we’d visited there in summer, end of July 2014.

Yet somehow I’d expected something more barren; cold, wet and windy.

As it was, it was raining and breezy when our flight got in at 11.30pm, and the next morning when we woke up it was overcast and drizzling. Yet it had been mild at around 15C as we set off in our hire car (booked via TopCashBack again to save some money!) to explore.

The first thing we noticed as we skirted the edges of Reykajavik and headed towards ‘The Golden Circle’ was how green thlandscape was. True, there were rugged moutains in the background, but the fields of green and gently rolling hillocks reminded me of Derbyshire, and some of the foilage of the Scottish landlands.

It was still drizzling as we pulled up at our first stop, the small town of Hveragerði. Here we hoped to find the hot spring of Reykjadalur.

However, as we were soon to discover, tourist sights are not well signposted.

After a quick pit-stop at a Bonus store (look for the rather high looking pink pig) to stock up on Icelandic chocolate for, erm,energy for the hike, we found an information board with the keyword we were looking for: Reykjadalur. The rest was in Icelandic, but there was an arrow, so off we went!

It wasn’t clear at all where to go after that. The path forked off in separate directions. It seemed though that we needed to head off further up the road; we could see a few obvious hikers in that direction and the green hills loomed yonder. The description I’d read was:

Reykjadalur (literal translation: ‘Steam Valley’) is one of the easiest hot spring areas to reach from Reykjavík. A short drive (45 minutes) brings you to the town Hveragerði and from there you can hike up to the warm river that flows down Reykjadalur.

The hike is not very demanding (although it’s not recommended for people that are afraid of heights since at one point you’ll be hiking along the top of a deep gorge) and you reach the warm river after about 45-90 minutes (depending on how fast you walk and how often you stop to take pictures of the waterfall in the gorge and all the pretty bubbling muddy hot springs on the way).

There are no facilities for changing your clothes when you get up there.

So we headed towards the hillside.

Hot mud springs
Hot mud springs

But no matter which path we chose, we couldn’t seem to find a way to scale it. Although we were enjoying ourselves exploring and had indeed found hot mud springs this was clearly not what we were looking for and certainly not a place we could take a dip – warning signs showed the temperature to be 80-100C.

There were a few other signs around, but none mentioned Reykjadalur.

Despite the drizzle we enjoyed our stroll and the steamy scenery, only slightly disapointed we couldn’t find our intended destination. We thought about going off path and heading directly for the hill side but both it’s steepness and the cautionary signs about new hot springs forming changed our minds, and determined to make the most of our limited time there, we headed back to the car.

Next stop was the Thingvellir (Þingvellir) National Park.

The oldest existing parliament in the world first assembled there in 930 AD. The area is protected as a national park due to its unique geology and natural features. Almannagjá is a canyon formed between two tectonic plates, a visual representation of continental drift. The waters in and around Þingvellir are a popular destination for fishing as well as scuba diving.

As we drove in a large circle around the park, enjoying the splendid lake and mountain scenery, the sun popped out to say hello, and lit the scene with a warming glow. Again, we had to ask ourselves, were we in Iceland or Wales? There was certainly no ice to be seen.

2014-07-26 15.38.36
Waterfall in Thingveller National Park

We stopped at a few places to take some photographs and visit one of the many impressive waterfalls, then attempted to find the second hot spring on our list.

This time we were successful.

The description had read:

Hrunalaug – another hot spring near Reykjavik

Hrunalaug is also easily accessible from Reykjavík. It is about an hour’s drive, close to the village of Flúðir. You need to drive road no 344 (Hrunavegur) from Flúðir and turn off it towards Sólheimar. Drive past the church and stop when you come to a parking space that has a ‘no camping’ sign. Just over the hill (2 minute walk) is Hrunalaug.

The pool itself is actually split into 2 pools. There is a little man made hut built over one pool, that is like a hot tub for 2-4 people. A little trickle of a river runs through the hut from the other pool that is slightly larger. The little hut is convenient to change your clothes in (or well, just take them off – most people just bathe naked since there is no-one around you!), especially at winter time.

I’d improve this somewhat by adding that the 344 is marked ‘Hruni’ and you have to drive for quite a few minutes before seeing the turn off towards Solheimar; you will see the mentioned church. There was a hand written road sign saying ‘Hrunalaug 400m’ although I’d estimate it to be a bit further than that; you then take the next right hand turn and you will come to the car park.

This is a lovely little spot with great views down the valley.

Taking a dip in the hot spring
Taking a dip in the hot spring

When we arrived there were a couple of middle aged gents and a middle aged couple. They politely moved away from the changing hut whilst we slipped into our bathing suits and sampled the beautifully warm water.

I would rate the temperature as a nice hot water – not steaming hot; just a nice, hot, perfect bath type temperature.

The water felt so silky on our skin, no doubt due to the mineral content. The clouds had cleared away at this point as we lay chin deep in the calming waters with the sun tanning our faces.

We didn’t want to leave!

We stayed about two hours, with numerous groups of people of all ages and nations coming and going. As one local stated when a large group of young adults (presumably Dutch) arrived: “In Iceland, there is no maximum capacity to a hot spring. There’s always room for one more!”.

Yet it never felt crowded, and we only dragged ourselves away with enough time to get to our hotel in time for the evening meal.

We checked into the Hotel Geysir (the actual sleeping accomodation is a minutes drive down the road in a light airy modern annex with excellent shared kitchen facilities) and went straight to dinner as they mentioned the kitchen closed at 9pm which was fast approaching.

My girlfriend is to, all extents and purposes, a vegetarian, and I try to avoid excessive meat consumption due to both moral and health reasons, but for the simple facts of convenience and enjoyment I do eat pretty much everything.

I will also try anything, especially if it’s new and exotic.

When I’d first heard that they’d served whale in Iceland, I’d had mixed feelings. Being against whaling I’d been initially repulsed, yet also intrigued. My girlfriend suggested that I’d only ever try it once anyway and I’ve always adopted the policy of ‘When In Rome…’… so one Mink Whale was ordered.

It wasn’t as I expected; looking, and tasting, far more like meat than fish. It was like a medium-rare steak in flavour and texture, with a slight metallic or kidney flavoured hint. The flesh inside looked odd – it reminded me of a turkish delight!

Apparently you have to eat it whilst hot, else it becomes almost uneatable. Being quite hungry at this stage, I wolfed it down, along with the excellent potato gratin stack and cauliflower puree.

I wouldn’t order it again. Not just from the moral perspective; I’d prefer a steak.

Several people on forums had commented on how expensive Iceland was. At the equivalent of £60 for two courses and a glass of wine each I thought the meal reasonably priced, considering the good quality. Over the weekend we were there we found most food and services at a price similar to the UK, but admittedly the accommodation and hire car had been considerable more than we’d pay for on other holidays abroad. My tip is to shop around and use a cashback site such as Topcashback (you can join up here).

Tired from our travels we went to bed, looking forward to what tomorrow would bring us.

Amazon sell an excellent guide: The Rough Guide to Iceland