Visited Iceland in November and it was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately it rained (and POURED) most of the time we were there so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked but the experience itself was incredible. 

After landing in Keflavik International Airport the lovely Odin from Ace Rental Cars collected us from the airport and took us to their office to pick up our rental car. This meant no waiting in queues at the airport and Odin was friendly and helped us start off in the right direction. Ace is a family owned business and they were lovely to deal with.

I had planned a rough itinerary using Furkot. This helped plan how much of Iceland we could realistically see in the five days we had there.

We made a quick stop at the supermarket near the airport and headed into Reykjavík.

There we checked out the Hallgrímskirkja Cathedral, the central city area and had dinner at the Reykjavík Hard Rock Cafe.

We also found an unusual Irish Pub which had a happy hour deal on. It was surreal to be having happy hour in the pitch dark of night due to the Icelandic winter days being so short. Consequently we all coma'd fairly early which was great for waking up early the next day to explore Reykjavík before it became a tourist mecca.

After breakfast we head off to The Golden Circle area slightly west of Reykjavík. 

We stopped in at Þingvellir National Park just as a break happened in the weather. A combination of waterfalls, scenic lookouts and a lot of volcanic rock, Þingvellir National Park is beautiful with glaciers looming in the background. 

From there we drove to the village of Fludir, the location of the Secret Lagoon natural hot spring pools. Iceland's most famous hot pool is Blue Lagoon, but we weren't too inclined to go because it seems overly commercial, full of tourists and was under re-development while we there.

Secret Lagoon was fairly priced, had great amenities and just happened to be on our way to our next stop so it worked perfectly.

The pools are hot and fenced off from the nearby spouting geysers which are signmarked to show which of the pools you should definitely not enter. We got adequately wrinkley and were able to hire very well laundered towels to dry off with.

Due to the winter days, it was another short day for us and we arrived at Skókgafoss in the dark. The rumbling of the nearby waterfall was pretty intense but it wasn't until we woke up the next morning with the thunderous Skókgafoss Waterfall in our back yard that we were able to check out just how beautiful it is. 

More rain did not stop us from climbing to the top of it, though it was at this point I regretted not buying waterproof trousers when Dan & Matty did. Cloudy and rainy, we couldn't see very far but Skogafos was another highlight. 

The rain then really packed it in and we head off to Vatnajökull National Park.