Today we embarked on a road trip around the Reykjanes Peninsula, a landscape of lava fields. The first stop was at the Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa. It was pretty incredible. The blue water (I'm guessing blue from the silica..) is heated from the volcanic activity in the region and creates this eerie atmosphere as the steam dissipates into the cooler surroundings. But we had a blast and Rosie loved it - we could have stayed all day, but we had some other sites to see.
Next up was lunch at a rustic dockside cafe in Grindavik, that boasted homemade lobster soup on the menu. This soup was unbelievably good - thank you Lonely Planet! More lava field madness ensued as we drove out to a rocky outcrop at Reykjanesviti Lighthouse. This place was just bonkers - it looked like the edge of the coast had been jacked up at an acute angle. I concur with the location of the lighthouse.
Our next stop was the Bridge between continents. Quite literally a bridge that spanned... a shallow ravine located where the Eurasian and North America plates are drifting apart. No surprise then that there is a lot of volcanic activity and an abundance of geothermal energy in Iceland. I'm being deliberately blasé because some books that I have read refer to a 'Ring of Fire' to describe where tectonic plates interface and present an image that we are perilously close to a Pompii-esque apocalypse. Yet a quaint little bridge that is subtle and understated sums up Iceland to me.
Our final stop was near another lighthouse at Gardur, northeast of the peninsula. We stopped for a brew at this local museum with a cafe above it with a terrace outside. The views were magnificent. The weather had been good too, so we could see for miles out to sea and watched as trawlers headed home, plagued by a squabble of seagulls. This was another brilliant place to have wiled away the day, but alas a fish and chip supper in Reykjavik was calling.