Icelandic Adventure: Jökulsárlón & Fjallsárlón

So I'm back from an epic adventure in Iceland (which I had concocted and dreamed about for over a year) and finally getting over jetlag. Still working on sorting through the thousands of photos that we took, but I'm definitely ready to start churning out regular blog posts again. I'll be peppering my regularly scheduled programming with Iceland posts over the next few weeks, so if it's something that interests you be sure to check back!

First off, we have Jökulsárlón, which is a glacier lagoon in Southeast Iceland, about a five-hour drive east of Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland). It's quite a famous and well-known spot, as movies have been filmed there (Tomb Raider, Die Another Day) and there are day tours you can book that from Reykjavik that will take you there during the summer months. We drove there ourselves, and getting there is quite easy, as it's right off of Route 1, the main highway that circles the entire country. I can't even tell you how awe-inspiring it is to catch the first glimpse of those milky blue icebergs floating in the water! We parked our car in one of the lots right before the bridge, as the one across the bridge looked quite packed. We mostly had the area west of the bridge all to ourselves, and it was very peaceful to watch the icebergs do their thing. If you stay there long enough you can see (and definitely hear) icebergs calve and melt, and it's pretty cool!


I wore my Sorel Out and About boots all over Iceland and they ended up being quite perfect. I was debating between bringing these or some heavier hiking boots, and made the right choice with the Sorels, as it was wet and muddy in many areas. They were also comfortable and lightweight, and I was able to wade into shallow streams which is always fun.

Once we were done, we decided to check out the view from the other side of the bridge (plus, that's where the restrooms, cafe, and boat tourswere). It was a lot more packed, but also easy to see why, as the icebergs all kind of pooled there at the mouth of the lagoon before floating off to sea. The icebergs were much closer to shore and the view was much better! Minus all the other people.

After leaving Jökulsárlón, we stopped by Fjallsárlón. It's another glacier lagoon (so called, but I think it's technically just a lake) about 10km west of Jökulsárlón, but lesser-known despite the signs pointing it out. Most people only visit Jökulsárlón! The bus tours don't stop there yet, probably. It looked like they were building some bathrooms so maybe that will change soon. We more or less had the place to ourselves. Talk about serene...no sounds around but the sounds of nature. The sight of the glacial tongue feeding into the lake was insane!

The icebergs at Fjallsárlón didn't seem to have as much of a bluish color to them as Jökulsárlón, so they weren't quite as photogenic, but I personally thought it was the more beautiful of the two. The only thing is, it was crazy cold and windy, which was kind of strange because it was pretty warm at Jökulsárlón just 10km east. Maybe it's because we were in much closer proximity to the actual glacier. Anyway, I've read that the icebergs at Fjallsárlón are more blue-looking in the winter time, and that the sight is really something to behold when the lake is frozen! I'm already dreaming of another visit...