The drive we had planned on this day in Iceland was gonna be a long one but so worth it because we would be visiting some of the best waterfalls in Iceland along the way.
We were currently staying at the Greenhouse Hotel in Sellfoss and would be driving all the way to the Fosshotel Glacier Lagoon.
The drive takes around 3 hours and 40 minutes which doesn’t seem like a lot but that’s without any stops for lunch and dinner (there are no restaurants near it).
Also that drive has some of the best waterfalls in Iceland so you know you could easily double that driving time with all the extra stops and then add a few more hours on top of that. (Here’s a great tour you can book which has the waterfall and some other amazing places to visit in Iceland)
As so off we went!
Our first stop was Seljalandsfoss which is this waterfall you can walk behind – which hands-down makes it not just one of the best waterfalls in Iceland but arguably in all of Europe.
Back when we visited the first time over 10 years ago (yeah, I know I keep reminiscing about this in all our previous posts, hehe!) there was a car park here but it was nowhere nearly as organised as it is now.
There are even toilets here now.
Anyway, we parked up and as you do, made our way over to the waterfall. As we approached it though, that’s when I realised we’d made a big mistake – not bringing raincoats with us.
Yeah, the weather was dry but with that wind, we were already starting to get quite wet before even getting to Seljalandsfoss.
We actually did have raincoats in the car but couldn’t be bothered to go back and get them. We should have.
If we thought we were getting wet from the front of Seljalandsfoss waterfall, you should have seen how wet we got when we walked behind it. We were thoroughly soaked.
By this point, though I figured if were already soaked then ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ and decided to walk down the path that leads toward the base of the waterfall.
It was a bit of a surreal experience because, from a distance, the waterfall seems relatively thin and wispy but up close, you get a true sense of how powerful it really is.
Completely drenched, we made our way back up through the opposite side of the waterfall and went to visit another waterfall just a few minutes away that we’d missed on our previous trips to Iceland.
It’s called Gljufrabui and it is hidden in plain sight here. It’s one of the best waterfalls in Iceland you may not even realise you already know.
Essentially if you are looking right at Seljalandsfoss, Gljufrabui is on the left of this, just about a 3-minute walk away.
It’s tucked away in a little cavern and you might get your feet a bit wet when you go looking for it but it’s so worth it.
It’s absolutely gorgeous and feels like you’ve found this incredible secret in Iceland.
Well, if you ignore all the other people around you waiting for their moment to soak it all in (pun intended).
Eventually, we made our way back to the car and headed off in search of our next waterfall – Skogafoss.
Skogafoss is another powerful and iconic Icelandic waterfall but we had to temper our enthusiasm and stop for lunch first.
The lunch stop was also an excuse to dry off as not a single item on me felt dry – especially not my shoes.
The hike to the Meradalir volcano two days before had left them very dusty and the waterfalls today just turned that dustiness into mud.
Lunch was at the nearby hotel’s restaurant and was a far cry from our most recent trip there a couple of years ago.
Back then the staff were so amazing and the lamb shank we had was so good. So much so that I decided to order the exact same thing.
A trip to one of the best waterfalls in Iceland definitely seemed like it needed one of the most typical meals you can get in Iceland.
The lamb shank today however was just okay at best and the service was actually quite bad.
Even just getting someone to take your order felt like pulling teeth and the staff acted like they would rather be anywhere else but there.
Anyway, after lunch and feeling nice and dry, we headed over to Skogafoss and instantly got wet again.
I definitely think the wind was doing something today because I don’t ever remember being as wet here as we were on this trip.
It is a magnificent waterfall and to be fair, we probably ventured a bit closer to it than we had on previous trips though that was in large part because we were already properly soaked again even before getting close to it.
Once we were done here we headed off in search of our hotel but decided to make a quick stop in Vik as that would be the last busy town we’d go through which had options for dinner that evening.
In Vik, we found Smiðjan Brugghús, a microbrewery which did great burgers, fries, BBQ pork ribs…etc.
The atmosphere here is really nice and the food is great so I’d definitely recommend it.
Dinner done we had a little jaunt around Vik, which was by now covered in fog before heading off on our road trip again.
I think we must have arrived at The FossHotel Glacier Lagoon probably close to midnight again but this time at least we had dinner before arriving.
Here’s what we got up to the next day in this post here – spoiler alert – it’s all about glaciers, icebergs and ice caves. 🙂
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