At the end of the day on Monday, Bill, Ivar, and I arrived at Hotel Geysir, a family run hotel that opened in 2019. Ivar did not stay at this hotel with us. I got the sense that it was pretty expensive. However, of the five hotels we stayed in, I think it was probably the most luxurious. The room we stayed in, a deluxe double, was huge by Icelandic standards. There was a little balcony, plenty of outlets for our electronics, and a super comfortable bed.

The bathroom didn’t have a shower; instead it had a large tub with a sprayer. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn on the water (you press buttons instead of turning knobs). Once I figured it out, I didn’t mind the tub. It was plenty big and deep.

Below are a few shots of the room and bathroom…

Below are a few photos I should have put in part seven, but I forgot. If you notice the caption of the photos with the people in them, I was immediately reminded of convicts in the USA cleaning up the roadsides. We had to explain that to Ivar, who didn’t know we had that in the States. But actually, they weren’t convicts. They were just people about to go riding, and most of them wore blaze orange rain gear.

After we checked into the hotel, and I got cleaned up in the tub, we went to the bar area to enjoy a drink or two before dinner. I was kind of enjoying the piano music they were playing, no doubt from Spotify. I kept Shazaming it. Ivar told us that the hotel had been built around an old school house, which we could see from the restaurant. I got a couple of photos of it at breakfast.

The restaurant was pretty crowded and busy, and we were seated at a “couch”, with two tables in front of it. I don’t usually like these kinds of set ups, because they can be awkward and weird. Indeed, the hostess tried to seat another couple next to us and they quickly moved. I don’t think it was necessarily because we offended. Based on what happened next, it looked like maybe the table rocked. They fixed that and seated a single man next to us.

Bill had his chance to try lamb, while I went with the sole. Both dishes were very good, although it was more than I could possibly eat. Sole is also kind of hard to eat because it has a lot of bones. I noticed one American woman sitting near us who actually needed a tutorial on how to eat fish on the bone. But anyway, below are some photos…

After dinner, we decided to have dessert drinks instead of dessert. The bar area was much quieter, plus the bartender was very personable. She turned out to be from Liepaja, Latvia, a place we visited last summer. I noticed that a lot of people from Latvia work in Iceland. I also noticed quite a few from other eastern European countries, but Latvian workers really stood out. I would imagine that the climate is fairly easy for them to get used to, although maybe Latvia is a little bit less hostile in the winter? I honestly don’t know.

I had a Lemon Cheesecake cocktail, and Bill had a drink named after a waterfall… And apparently, one of us had a beer… LOL…

The next morning, we got up bright and early, only to find that there was no electricity. Ivar told us that there was none in his hotel either, and for some reason, that happens in the area near the geyser on some occasions. We were wondering if breakfast would be affected when the lights suddenly came back on, and when we went back to the restaurant to eat, everything was all set up. Ivar was there, too, as his hotel didn’t offer breakfast. I guess he just paid for it at Hotel Geysir, which has a very generous buffet that even includes cava. I made mimosas for Bill and me…

Hotel Geysir is located right across the street from Strokkur Geysir, one of the world’s most powerful geysirs (spelled “geysers” by us English speakers). I had never seen a geyser in person before our visit to Iceland, and as it turned out, the area around the dormant”big” geyser at this site was closed and, according to Ivar, is no longer as exciting as it once was. But that was okay, as the so-called “little geyser” was plenty impressive… Below is a video I made showing the geyser going off, and our guide explaining it to us.

I also took some still photos of the area around the geysers… As you can see, pickpockets have become a problem at this site. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of crowds there during our visit.

I was going to write up the whole day in this post, but it’s getting kind of late and I’m still pretty tired from COVID. We also did a lot, and visited several awesome waterfalls that require making videos and posting many photos. So I’m going to stop with this, and resume tomorrow with more sunshine and waterfalls! See you then!