Golden CircleTour – Hidden Iceland tour company
We enjoyed an excellent experience on a private Golden Circle Tour with superb guide, Fannar Andresson, through Hidden Iceland tour company, and we strongly recommend him and them. The Golden Circle tour concept is ubiquitous among Iceland tour companies, and offers a ‘greatest hits’ tour of classic Iceland sights, including glaciers, waterfalls, geysers, hot springs and tectonic plates. You can join a full-sized bus tour, or a smaller group vehicle, or a private guide in doing the Golden Circle. We opted for the most expensive option – the private tour – because experience has shown us that the smaller the group, the more ground you typically cover. Our guide, Fannar, picked us up in a new Toyota Land Cruiser with very impressive oversized tires, which are needed when traversing a glacier (something we didn’t do on our tour). He was an amicable, knowledgeable and engaging young man who was uniformly pleasant and professional during our long day together. He was a veritable font of knowledge about his country, it’s origins and it’s geography, and he enjoys sharing his knowledge with his clients. We began the tour by traveling to Pingvellir National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where the initial formation of a governing body/parliment for Iceland occurred in 930, and we viewed where the American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. We also visited Gullfoss, the second largest waterfall in Europe (the first is located in northern Iceland), which is an awe-inspiring sight to see. You can view the glaciers from this same location. We saw volcanos as we traveled to Geysir, the original geyser that all others are named after, and watched numerous eruptions. We saw incredible lava fields. We enjoyed a unique, all-tomato lunch at Frioheimar, a tomato greenhouse/restaurant that is a very popular stop. (Make sure you make reservations!) We visited a lakeside school where locals were baking bread by burying their loafs in thermal pits – quite a sight to see. We also stopped at a dairy farm, and enjoyed some fresh ice cream, before ending the day at Sky Lagoon, back in Reykjavik, for a nice hot soak.
It was a pleasure dealing with Anika and others at Hidden Iceland in planning our tour, and as I have said, Fannar was a fabulous guide who made the experience special for Catherine and me. If you’re considering this tour, give Fannar and Hidden Iceland a call – you won’t regret it. Thank you, Fannar & Hidden Iceland!
