Our last day in Iceland consisted of two sights: Thingvellir National Park and Kerid Crater. You can spend the better part of a day just in the National Park, so that’s what we did.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Thingvellir National Park is where the Althing, an open-air assembly representing the whole of Iceland, was established in 930 AD. This assembly continued to meet until 1798. For two weeks every year, the assembly set laws and settled disputes. This location has a deep historical significance for the people of Iceland.

There were a number of stop-offs along the side of the road as we drove deeper into the park. Eventually we reached the lot near Almannagjá Gorge and made our way down.

The path here is called Dead Man’s Walk. It was the place where harsh punishments were carried out under the original Icelandic government. According to a nearby sign, 30 males were beheaded in this place and 9 were burned at the stake. In the nearby Drekkingarhylur stream, 18 women were drowned. For such a peaceful location, these details made things feel a bit creepy.

One end of the path ended with Öxarárfoss, a small waterfall where tourists were all around trying to get a photo. The stream continued further but the path didn’t so we turned around. This area was used as a filming location for Game of Thrones, where “The Bloody Gate” from the episode was added with CGI.

A short distance away was a much larger parking lot with a different way to Dead Man’s Walk and Lögberg, where the parliament used to meet. Going down into the park, you are walking across the edge of the North American continent onto the Eurasian one.

Due to the unstable geological conditions, the valley is slowly sinking. It is quite a beautiful place to stroll around, and even with large crowds in the popular areas we were able to find fewer people once we strayed further from the entrances and parking lots. With long walks in many directions, there were a variety of choices and we spend a couple hours wandering this area.

Walking away from the fissure, we took a boardwalk around a pond area. The land all around it was where many of the original structures stood. Although there were few visible signs of them, there were a number of signs giving information about what stood there before. It was a pleasant walk.

From here we looped around towards Lögberg again. Everything is connected to it was easy to visit the different locations regardless of your parking location.

We ate our lunch on the road and then headed back to Selfoss in the late afternoon for a break.

Located just 15 minutes outside Selfoss, Kerid Crater is an easy way to spend an hour circling around and walking down to the bottom of the crater. As it is located on private land, there is an entry fee of 450 krona for this one.

It took some time to circle around the crate. After this circuit we went back near the entrance and took the stairway down to the bottom.

It was now almost 8 p.m. and we hadn’t eaten dinner, so it was back so Selfoss for a final meal before preparing to return home. We really enjoyed Iceland. Despite the high cost, it was clean, efficient and full of unique natural wonders throughout the island. We had missed quite a few interesting sites as well as the entire north-western Westfjords region. We hope to make a return visit someday, and perhaps use a 4×4 to do some of the F-roads that are a great way to see the more isolated locations on the island.

With a new trip just around the corner, there will be a different travel destination in the new year.

Random Notes

-The Golden Circle is easy to get to from the airport and it not far from Reykjavik, making it the busiest area for tourists. But even during the height of summer the crowds were not overwhelming

-This was the first trip where we didn’t exchange any money at all. We used a credit card for everything including gas, parking, toll fees and all entrance fees

-After strong earthquakes last month, there has been a recent volcanic eruption near Grindavik, a small but pretty town we passed through early in the trip. It’s still not known if the town will be damaged or destroyed by the lava, but we really hope it manages to escape further damage. It was another reminder of the power of volcanoes in Iceland