Planning my third trip -magical place, great people, overwhelmingly beautiful landscapes.
Practicalities - get your duty free on the way in. We took small flasks to take a boozy coffee with us on our day trips. We also took snacks (nuts, Clif bars, dark chocolate, jerky) to take during the day, tea and coffee, hot chocolate sachets, and I took a little stacking pot of herbs and spices to liven up rather bland pasta dishes and grilled cheese sandwiches! And a refillable water bottle - the tap water is delicious (if a little eggy smelling at first).
The city pools are heaven - I go very early or very late and do the full round of steam room, cold dip, swim then hot pot soak. Best six quid you'll ever spend. Don't forget your towel and plastic bag to drop your wet suit into.
Loved the Secret Lagoon - we did it as part of the 'platinum' Golden Circle tour - used I Heart Reykjavik site for recommendations for our tours and they were brilliant. Small mini bus, no more than ten of us on the bus, brilliant tour guide. We went to the tomato greenhouses restaurant and that was great - you get to pet the Icelandic horses there (don't call them ponies!).
Braud & Co for The Best cinnamon buns you'll ever try. Loved the food hall, flea market, and exploring Tonar and Lucky Records. Bonus for basic food items (we actually took packets of 'very naice' ravioli etc for quick lunches as we had so much planned we knew we'd only have an hour back in our apartment between the next event/tour). We also went on the history of brewing in Iceland tour which was loads of fun (with loads of samples) and met really nice people.
Loved walking along the coastline - bitterly cold.
Download the Appy Hour app for a fun pub crawl.
Layers, layers, layers! You go from biting icy wind to extremely warm indoors and need to adjust your clothing quickly! Definitely a waterproof that goes to your knees if you can or certainly waterproof over trousers if you are going out of the city on a tour. Uniqlo Heattech is your friend. Get a trapper hat that does up under your chin or it'll blow off! YakTrax for when it's icy.
We loved the Icelandic Street Food cafe - the lamb soup in a bread bowl with free refills was great.
We enjoyed visiting Harpa, Hallgrimskirkja, the Icelandic art gallery, Icelandic handknitting association and wandering in and out of cafes and bars in between day tours. We were so fortunate on our last night to have a magical display of the Northern Lights (I cried with joy!).
It's such a wonderful place - hope you love it.