Land of Fire and Ice - in one day

Of course not. But we did what you might think of the as the essence of Iceland.

We had just disembarked a Norway and Iceland cruise with NCL and the final three ports had been Akureyri and Ísafjörður in the north of Iceland, and the capital city, Reykjavik. These three ports alone were such a contrast. The first two are both in fjords so you have a lovely sail in, and when you dock at the port you are surrounded by the most amazing scenery. But at the same time they are both different with Akureyri being the fifth largest town/city in the country and Ísafjörður being on the opposite end of the spectrum with just 2,700 inhabitants. Reykjavik on the other hand is a small capital city (with 388,000 inhabitants) and whilst it is not the bustling metropolis of many capital cities it seemed very large compared to what we had experienced. We had an overnight in this port so we had already explored it the previous day. We had a hotel booked for the night of our disembarkation before we flew home, which gave us a full day to explore and make the most of our time.

So what did we do?

Iceland is built on volcanos. The landscape changes whenever a volcano erupts. Roads get closed by lava flow and new temporary ones are built to allow traffic to still get from A to B. It is a land of geographical features which, although you may find elsewhere, you won't find them all so close together like they are here. Volcanos sit alongside glaciers (the Fire and Ice), and continental plates collide. Mists hover over the top of mountains, shrouding them in mystery. Geothermic springs allow you to bath and relax amidst hardened lava, with a sense of being cut off from the world.

So, we hired a car and went for a drive. It is not surprising that many tourists want to see some of the geographical features that Iceland is famous for, and by far the most popular way to see some of these is by doing a tour on the Golden Circle. You can do an organised tour but we decided to do a self-drive to allow us to go at our own pace. The entire drive leaving from and returning to Reykjavik takes about 3.5 hours - longer of course, if you want to stop at various points!

So what did we see on our tour of the Golden Circle?

1. The Kerid Crater - the remains of a volcano that erupted 6,500 years ago.

2. Geysir Hot Springs - the big one only erupts about 3 times a day so we didn't get to see that, but we did see Strokkur which erupts every few minutes

3. Gullfoss - this is a spectacular waterfall, which I suspect would have looked even better without the rain and VERY strong winds! Also stopped at the café here for lunch where I had Viking style beef goulash

4. Öxarárfoss - whilst not as big as Gullfoss I found this SO impressive. It flows through the place where the American and Eurasian continental plates meet

5. Þingvellir National Park - another great place to see where the continental plates meet and also the site of Iceland's first parliament, which first met in 930 CE

The weather did improve as the day went on but by the end of this we were cold and tired. But, other than glaciers, we had seen the key features of the country.

Except one.

Geothermal baths

And so we ended our day at the Blue Lagoon.

This is very near the volcano that has been erupting recently and we did have to use a temporary road to get there due to the main one being blocked by lava. But it was definitely worth it. Such an experience, watching the sunset from these warm silica-blue waters, enjoying a face mask and a drink.

Driving away at 10pm we saw cars ahead of us put on their hazard lights and pull in. We glanced to the side of the road and immediately did the same. In the dark we could see what we hadn't seen in daylight as we drove to the Blue Lagoon. The volcano erupting in the distance.

So that was 'erupting volcano' ticked off our list.

A fantastic end to a fantastic holiday that had taken us from the warm weather in Bruges and Amsterdam, to the picturesque fjords in Norway (with a royal wedding thrown in for good measure), and then to the cold and rain of Iceland.

Unforgettable.