[:en]Today we visited some attractions from the Diamond Circle, mainly Dettifoss waterfall, Mt. Námafjall/ geothermal area of Hevrir / Hell’s kitchen, lake Mývatn and Mývatn nature bath (Jarðböðin).
The Diamond circle is a circuit about 260 km in northeastern Iceland, as compared to the Golden circuit in the southern Iceland. The main highlights of the Diamond circle are the town of Húsavík, gigantic horseshoe-shaped Asbyrgi Canyon, Lake Mývatn and Dettifoss Waterfall.
We were lucky as the weather was sunny and excellent and after a rich brunch at the hostel in Seyðisfjörður.
By the way the small town is really lovely with only about 700 inhabitants and I really think it’s worth to stay at least one day to explore the scenery around the town (mountains, fjord, river and cascading waterfalls…).
Our first stop of the Diamond circle is Dettifoss waterfall (and Selfoss from far away) , the most powerful waterfall in Europe.
Its water comes from Vatnajökull glacier, Europe’s largest glacier, where we had the glacier adventure.
Thanks to the nice weather, we were able to see rainbows and double rainbows near the waterfall and made some “funny” pictures with the rainbows . (P.S. Drones are not allowed in the area.)
On the way to lake Myvatn, we visited the geothermal area of Hevrir (Mars-like scenery with rotten egg smell all over the area).
On the road up to Krafla geothermal power station, we passed by the mysterious place, the “Krafla toilet”, where a shower and bathroom sink are installed outside next to a road (and a lot of flies) !
It used to have a toilet but was replaced by a sink when we were there in 2016.
Finally instead of walking around the lake Myvatn, we all voted to stay the rest of the day resting in the Myvatn nature bath till sunset. The Myvatn nature bath is much bigger than the secret lagoon and it is more touristic. However, we had a great time enjoying the sunset view, the water jet/massage, sauna/steam bath, cold shower, and a cup of coffee on the terrace!
After the bath, we headed to Húsavík for the whale watching on the next day!
We made a nice diner for ourselves at the hostel and tried to take some photos of midnight sun but did not really succeed.
We did not have time to visit Goðafoss waterfall, nor the Grjótagjá cave under the fissure Stóragjá, and lava and ice cave in the area of Gjástykki. That will be for the next time!
Grjótagjá lava cave (photo by P. Krimbacher)
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I’m Skyangelo, the globetrotter, amateur photographer, hiker & coach behind this travel blog.
