Flying from Zürich over Copenhagen to our destination: Keflavik!

Kind of a nightmare with a one and a half years old child sitting on your legs for the all travel (if you have a child like mine, not cuddly at all and needing his own space from his very first day of life, accept my suggestion: book him a seat even if under 2 years he/she could fly for free, it's worth your mental (and phisical!) health!)

We land at 9 p.m., just walk over to the Airport Hotel Aurora Star and try to convince our son to sleep altough outside the sun is still high in the sky (well, if I'm totally honest, our son NEVER wants to go to sleep, but the sun was a reason more to avoid it)

As usual I wake up earlier than my 2 boys (my husband and my son) -at least on holidays because I'm too exicited! - and go for a short walk around the hotel. The weather is perfect and I can see Snaefellsnesjökull at the horizon and all of a sudden I realize: I'm really going to get married in Iceland tomorrow! In the church which made us think about getting married!

Short call with my father (a 67 years old man which for the first time flew alone to Iceland just for me, his only daughter, very proud of him) to decide when to meet in Hellnar. Before going back to the hotel to wake up my boys, I stop-over at Joe & the Juice to get some fresh juices and a couple of cappuccinos to start the new day :)

We leave for Hellnar at around 12, on the way my husband "Why don't we QUICKLY stop in Reykjavik?", ok...let's do that, I hate when things don't follow plans, especially MY plans ;) 

The quick stop lasts a couple of hours and we have a fantastic lunch with salmon marinated in kind of a mango-vegetable mix in the city center. Then we drive further to Hellnar, or better said, first Stykkisholmur, to meet our pastor for the first time.

I'm quite nervous, always have the feeling something will go wrong, or that , altough we paid, maybe the pastor doesn't even exist (even if we spoke to someone at the phone, but who knows)

Several hours later, with more than half an hour delay (which is a huge delay for my new acquired swiss mentality), we reach Stykkisholmur Church and meet Gunnar, our pastor.

I thought we would get kind of a religion exam, instead of that Gunnar asks us about us, how we met, about our son, in few words: just great!

I get the feeling Gunnar and us have been knowing each other for a very long time and it is a super special gift to get married from such a nice, warm and positive person.

After further few details about the cerimony the day after, we say good bye to Gunnar and go further to Hellnar.

On the way I decide to call my father (and here it comes the little tragedy) to check where he is and he says me he has reached our hotel in Hellnar but could not find his own one (which is somewhere else because when he decided to come to our wedding as only guest it was already overbooked in ours) to take the hotel keys: I panic! And wonder why in all world I have to save him again from his "take it easy" mentality. The hotel reception closes at 19:30, it is 19:45 (panic!), I call the hotel and thanks God someone is still there and wait for me to take up the keys.

At 20:30 we are in Hellnar and enjoy a wonderful dinner together.

So strange to see my father in Iceland and at the same time: so good!

After all we passed through in our life, he is now here, in the land of my dreams and also of his won dreams (since he was a teenager, reading Jules Vernes' "Journey to the centre of the earth")

After hiding my wedding dress from my husband in the bathroom and a quick chat with my best friends I go to bed, quite excited, but also exhausted. Sleep deep and peacefully :)

Getting married in Iceland

There we are: the day of our wedding in Iceland! :)

Cerimony will be at 11:30, we wake up around 9, go for breakfast with my two boys and then: get ready! I tested make up and hair a couple of times before (on my own) and this time comes out even better :)

When I go out of the room with the dress to take the car to the church all people stare at me: cool feeling, I'm the bride!

My father is already waiting in front of the church, the photographer Larus with his son (assistant photographer!) too.

Gunnar , our pastor, is already inside the church, all dressed up. His wife gave a quick cleaning to the church, which is mostly closed.

My husband goes inside the church to wait for me; my father, my son and I walk to the entrance and I go inside, hand in hand with my oldest and my little one.

I do not realize anything, I do not see the wonderful blue church's ceeling, I just see my husband, waiting for me.

We sit in front of each other, as the tradition wants in Iceland, me on the left, my husband on the right side.

The cerimony is in English, but the prayers in Icelandic, since Gunnar told us he can pray "better" in his mother language. On our knees in front of him and his hands on our heads, I let the pray flow through me, it was quite a mystic feeling.

After saying "Yes, I do" "Yes,  I will", we go out of the church.

A perfect personal cerimony, just with the most important men in my life.

We then go all together to the beach to take some shots with my father and my son too, before going for the wedding photo session. I walk barefoot on the stones, the sea is there, I feel free, exactly the way I wanted my wedding day to be.

Going back to the car, we meet a group of Italians, who start singing "Fratelli d'Italia" for us, how funny ( and embarassing!).

After leaving my son and my father at the hotel, my husband and I go for the photoshooting for a couple of hours. Larus looks like a real Viking, is very funny and gives us suggestions for the photos like " now I want a very intense Viking face" (don't know if we really managed).

I keep walking around with my hiking shoes under the dress, it was a great idea and no one noticed anyway ;)

Back at the church, my husband shoots some drone videos around me in wedding dress (and will repeat this later since forgot to save them!) and then we go to the hotel, where we find granfather and grandson sleeping peacefully in our bed.

I take my wedding dress out and we go for a walk before dinner.

Perfect day.

Woke up relatively late after"fighting" with my son the day before to convince him to sleep (never sleeps until 11 p.m. , always been like that and guess it will never change). After a super yummybreakfast in our hotel we drive to the hotel where my father stays to go around together. During the travel to Stykkisholmur my dad tells us he woke up early and went the street up the Snaefellsjökull glacier with his car (no four wheel drive, car switching off every now and then on normal streets , if I would have told him the same when I was 18 I would have got home arrest until now - I'm 35 by the way) and was a bit disappointed not being able to reach the summit of the glacier (by car???🙄).

Here we are: today my dad is leaving to fly back to Rome (I am still sad about it, I will briefly change my mind at the next stop). Since the flight is late at night, we will spend the day together and decide to meet at Hraunfossar, quite famous waterfalls which we have not yet seen, although it's our third time in Iceland (actually fourth for my husband). Every time we visit Iceland, there are places we want to see again and places we still have to discover. There is still so much to do, to see and to "breath in", that I guess we will never be really done with this country. We reach Hraunfossar, my father is already there since half an hour and we find him discussing with a guy because of the way he parked (which was really not good). Finally I convince him to let me park the car somewhere else; he is also quite stressed since the car repeatedly didn't want to start the all morning ( I won't spent many word on the company he rented the car from but really: what the hell are you renting? I would have asked the money back if I had been my father).

We visit the waterfalls, take some photos and then say goodbye to my dad, hoping he will reach the airport safe (indeed he did).

The day after is quite...how to say: relaxing (=boring).

Based on our Iceland guide book, we decide to go to Akranes, a little town on the west coast. We try to find a city center but with no success (or probably we did find it, it just did not look like a city center), but at least we enjoy cappuccino and cake in a nice coffee shop, provided with some toys for children. I have to say, in this regards, Iceland is very family friendly. Every coffee shop or restaurant has at least something for the little ones: draw material, toys or even a fully equipped childrens' room with every possible toy in it (I was very surprised that even a little but delicious restaurant in Reykjavik, the Sea Baron - if you go there try the lobster soup and the grill spears with salmon or whale - , had a childrens room).

Anyway, back to our Day 6.

Afterwards decided to drive to (I had to check the name on google maps) Deildartunguhver, a hot spring in Reykholtsdalur. After seing the Geysir part near Gullfoss during our first holiday in Iceland, I have to say these were disappointing.

We decide to go for dinner in Borgarnes, at the Settlement Center Restaurant: just fantastic! And also our little boy enjoyed his pizza margherita 😋

On the way back to Bifröst (Brrrr) we stop at, as my husband and I call it,  "Gianni" waterfall, (actually the name is Glanni - probably just the two of us understand the joke) for a QUICK drone flight over it (I don't know how many QUICK drone flights we had during the all journey , probably in total about 80 hours... - still love my husband 😉)

Wake up late and after a wonderful breakfast, with huge quantities of selfmade pancakes, we drive to Dettifoss: the weather is amazing and our little one dances to the music in his car seat. We decide not to stop at Godafoss (which we already know from last time) and drive the 150 km to the most powerful waterfall in Europe. 

We park the car on the west bank (the best road, the other one on the east bank is a gravel road) and for the first time see the "no drone" sign in our life: my husband feels lost! (and I feel relieved). Concerning drone flights in Iceland: birds don't like them, so watch out if you do not want your drone to come back home in more than one piece.

Our son doesn't want to jump in his baby carrier backpack (we used it twice during the all holiday and after it sold it - we actually had to know, he wants his freedom since his birth), so we walk to the waterfall, waiting for him every now and then to jump into the next puddle. In 2013, as my husband and I (we were not parents yet) went to Dettifoss, the weather was awful and we gave a quick look and run back to the car. This time the waterfall welcomes us with sun and rainbow. We then go back and drive up to Husavik (no whale watching for us this time) to the next hotel and to have dinner.

We have a fish soup as a starter and I try as main course Plokkfiskur (mashed fish & potatoes to be eaten with rye bread), my husband unfortunately grill spears with cod; actually we still do not know if it was the fish soup (in mine there was almost no fish, my husband's one was full of it) or the grill spear with cod, but the result for my husband was a night spent at the toilet and a couple of days feeling dizzy with nausea (I won't mention the restaurant's name, no way).

So I fall asleep totally worried about him, after he (is a neurologist) tells me "If I start behaving strange, bring me to the nearest hospital, should actually be at the end of the street, right?" - ok, well, goodnight then.

The day starts slowly as usual, my husband is feeling a bit better and we go to Grjotagja cave again, because I think this is something my husband should have seen.

Afterwards we walk up Hverfjall crater, east of Myvatn lake (son in the baby carrier backpack again!Don't know how I managed to walk up with him on my shoulders, it's a short walk, but when your weight is all of a sudden 10 Kg more you feel the difference).

We then drive to Vogafjos, which is an hotel with a very nice restaurant on the east side of Myvatn: I get e great Burger (with the meat from the cows they have there in the farm), my poor husband just tries a baked potato, his stomach is not yet ready for more. We then spend the late afternoon sleeping, all the three of us in a huge bed: that's the best of the best, when you fall asleep breathing in the breath of your child peacefully sleeping :)

Next morning, alarm set at 8 o' clock, my husband and I go for breakfast after setting up the babyphone. It's nice to be just the two of us. We then go back to the room to put our swimming suits on and then it happens: our son wakes up and has neither intention to sleep any further, nor wants to come into the Jacuzzi with us (thanks a lot!). So I go first, my husband afterwards.

We leave the guesthouse aroung 12 to reach our last destination of this wonderful travel, the capital city. We get a super nice studio apartment in Laugavegur with view of Hallgrimskirkja and after leaving our luggages and cooking some pasta with pesto for the little one, leave for a little shopping tour.  But our son is not in the mood for shopping, but rather in the mood for freedom: so he doesn't want to follow us anywhere, just wants to go up and down some stairs for half an hour and in the end runs away from us in the middle of Laugavegur. We are so at the end with our nerves that we don't even run or shout, we just follow him and some people believe the little one is alone and start speaking with him asking where mummy and daddy are when we intervene (so here we are: the worst parents ever! When I looked at these scenes before I admit I also thought that of other people, now that I'm in the middle of it I just have compassion, for the others and for myself first!). So we decide to go back to the flat and go separately for the shopping tour ( and what do I buy during mine? a shirt for our son, what else! When he is there he is sometimes unbearable but as soon as he is somewhere else - or even just sleeping - I miss him and just think about him).

Thanks to the tablet with Heidi cartoons saved on it, we enjoy a wonderful dinner for three at the Fish Market and I fall asleep with the heart-breaking feeling I'm going to leave my "by choice"-home country tomorrow.

Every time I leave Iceland it's really heartbreaking but this time even more: we got married, we brought our son for the first time to the country of our dreams and we take such wonderful memories back with us. But actually I do not realize how much leaving Iceland is difficult for me until it's time for boarding: as we walk to the gate I start crying and crying and cannot stop.

My husband tries to support me, my son looks at me very seriously with "doggy" eyes but I cannot stop crying. And the pain grows even more when we take off and I see the country from above disappering slowly from my view. And I promise myself to find a plan, a plan which will allow me/us to come back...and stay.