We traveled to Iceland in the summer of 2025, starting our trip with 4 days in Reykjavik before cruising around the island. While we were in Reykjavik we took several excursions (one was 12 hours!), took a walking food tour, ate some yummy and not so yummy Icelandic food, and visited several Reykjavik landmarks including Harpa Concert Hall and the Perlan Museum.
We stayed at the Exeter Hotel in Reykjavik. It is a 106 room hotel with a funky restaurant/bar (Le Kock/Tail) and delicious bakery (Deig). The hotel had a nice vibe, probably skewed toward a 30’s crowd. Everyone was friendly. The rooms were very nice, European style (aka small).
While we were staying in Reykjavik we took three tours offered by Wake Up Reykjavik. All were excellent. We figured by seeing some sights in advance, we could take the shorter, included excursions on our Viking cruise and enjoy more time on the ship. We started with a tour called “Wonders of Snæfellsnes”. This toured the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. We saw lava fields, the Snæfellsjokull Glacier, Kirkjufell Mountain (it’s in Game of Thrones) and it’s waterfalls, seals, a black beach and lunch at a horse farm. It was a very long day packed with lots of sights.
Our next tour with Wake Up Reyjkavik was a walking food tour. The tour was a small group of 16 people. We walked throughout downtown Reykjavic sampling Icelandic specialties. The winners were rye bread ice cream, a flavorful lamb soup (kjötsúpa), and a creamy fish stew (plokkfiskur). One of us (me) tried the renowned fermented shark (hákarl) with a shot of Brennivin, an Icelandic aquavit also called “Black Death”. The shark was a tiny cube of fermented Greenland shark. Fun fact, Greenland sharks are the longest living vertebrates on earth, some living over 400 years.
The last tour we took was a Golden Circle Tour. We visited Thingvellir National Park where the North American and Eurasion tectonic plates are pulling apart at a rate of 2 cm per year. We were able to walk in the rift between the plates. We also saw several eruptions at Geysir, the Gullfoss waterfall, and the Keriǒ crater lake.
In addition to the Wake Up Reykjavik excursions we also did some exploring on our own. We had some yummy fish and chips from Reykjavik Fish, some pylsur (lamb hot dogs) from Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, soaked in the oceanside Sky Lagoon geothermal spa, walked the rainbow road and did some bar hopping. We visited the Hallgrimskirkja Church and visited the Perlan Interactive Nature Museum with it’s actual ice cave and Northern Lights show. We also toured the architecturally wonderful Harpa Concert Hall and saw the interactive volcano show.
On to Fire and Ice Part 2, a seven night cruise around Iceland on the Viking Mars…