Iceland's Golden Circle.

We rented a car in Iceland and it was wonderful to have freedom to drive and stop as we liked. Visiting in the summer was perfect, our tiny car was fine on the roads & Iceland is very easy to navigate.

We were all struck by Iceland's terrain. There are hardly any trees & lots of moss. The word "craggy" came to mind a lot. Driving through the country brought constant surprises- one moment you see a crater, then a waterfall, a glacier or a mountain peak. We read the entire guide book during our hours in the car so we learned about Iceland's history, culture, cuisine, etc. The internet is great but I will always believe in my Lonely Planet books.

We stopped several times to visit horses::

Our first stop was Kerið crater. It was absolutely amazing::

We stopped at our first waterfall, Faxafoss. I think we touched the fresh, cold water everywhere we went.
 If you notice fog in a few of my photos, I believe my camera got some water inside from this waterfall::

We had lunch at a greenhouse, Friðheimar. I cannot recommend this place enough. You have to have a reservation to eat at the table. We were not sure about our time frame, so we just ate at the bar & the tomato plants were behind us. The tomato soup and bread was devoured by us all. We also tried tomato cheesecake in a little pot. They had tomato flavored everything! It was one of my favorite meals ever. 

Of course we stopped at Geysir (geothermal area). It was tough, but I got a photo of a geyser! Zara was not very impressed though, she fell asleep while she was on top of Jonas' shoulders. There were so many tourists here and a very large, very expensive gift shop::

Strokkur is the small geyser that still goes off::

It was still nap time for Z when we made it to Gullfoss. It was stunning ::

Due to all of the tourists (like us), stopping for horses the farmer at Brú sells food and lets you visit and feed his old horses::

Our little car::

My favorite stop of the day was a hike we took to Bruarfoss. I was a great hike talking and taking in the scenery. I love the start of it  too- you use a step ladder over a fence::

Even though Iceland has a lot of daylight in the summer, it was pretty dark for our stop to Þingvellir. In hindsight, we should have carved out more time for this stop- perhaps next time! We read a lot about this historic place on our drive but I will take this summary from the I heart Reykavik blog (great local blog!): "A national park that is very important to the Icelandic people. This is where the Icelandic Parliament Alþingi was founded in 930 where the republic of Iceland was founded in 1944".

I really wanted to snorkel between these two tectonic plates (Silfra), but was not sure what it would be like for Zara (could we take turns while the other waited for Z?) so we just visited from above.