Highlights of The South

DAY 1: UK – REYKJAVÍK

Scheduled Icelandair flight to Reykjavík. Collect hire car at the airport, drive to and overnight at Hotel Fludir for 4 nights.

DAY 2: THE SOUTH COAST

Wake up to the drama of Fludir, one of Iceland’s most spectacular settings (in a country which has more than its fair share of them) with its variegated flora and fauna latticed with lakes, rivers, steaming craters and bubbling hot springs. After breakfast, drive along the coast (stopping at Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss on the way) to Dyrhólaey’s bird cliffs and black sand beaches.

DAY 3: EYRARBAKKI & STOKKSEYRI

Visit the greenhouse village of Hverager∂i, a sort of giant geothermally heated garden centre – even the local church has tiny geysers spouting alongside it. Afterwards pop down to the coast and Eyrarbakki, a colourful little place with rather more traditional clapboard buildings than the average Icelandic village, and to Stokksyri where you can round off your day with a plate of lobster in the village’s waterside restaurant.

DAY 4: GEYSIR-GULLFOSS

After breakfast, drive up to the Geysir area where Strokkur spouts impressively every 5 to 10 minutes, alongside of which there are steaming fumaroles, hot springs and pools, some a dark muddy grey and others a translucent turquoise. Then on to Gullfoss, the golden waterfall, where the glacial river Hvítá plummets 32 metres before twisting and tumbling down a large gorge. End your day with a visit to ∫ingvellir, always mystically beautiful but particularly tranquil in late afternoon when the day tour visitors have left.

DAY 5: REYKJAVÍK – UK

After breakfast drive along the moss clad lava Reykjanes peninsula to the Blue Lagoon for a valedictory bathe, before dropping your car off at the airport and return flight to UK.