After a stressful few days of packing (for me anyway), we’re finally off, and I’m writing this on the train from Limoges Gare Benedictins to Paris Austerlitz.

Our petsitter Joanna is lovely and despite having bulldog separation anxiety (me not him). I know everyone and everything is in safe hands.

Our itinerary for the next week or so, is as follows….

We arrive in Paris early evening and we have a hotel booked at the airport overnight.

On Saturday afternoon we fly to Keflavik airport and transfer to our Reykjavik hotel which will be our base for 7 nights.

Sunday we have nothing rigidly planned during the day but I have booked tickets for the Perlan, Iceland’s national museum, with a panoramic view of the city from it’s observation deck, a planetarium with Northern Lights show, a 100 mtr ice cave, and a 10mtr man made cliff full of birds and plant life. Seems like a great way to understand more about Iceland’s topography before our walking boots hit the snow.

In the evening we are booked on a Northern Lights “midnight adventure”, which is pretty much as it sounds. We’ll get confirmation that the tour is going ahead a few hours in advance due to weather and atmospheric conditions etc. If not then we’ll rebook later in the week as many times as we can until we hopefully see them (or not). Given we have a forecast for snow all week, I don’t know how it’ll affect visibility so we’ll just have to cross our fingers.

Monday afternoon we are booked on the 7 step ritual at Sky Lagoon, a thermally heated spa just outside the city centre. The infinity pool overlooks the see and it looks heavenly. The 7 step ritual is basically, hot water, cold water, sauna, cool mist, body scrub and er things I forget. Im hoping that with sun rising at 10.30 am and setting just after 4, our session should allow us to see sunset over the water, preferably with a glass of fizz in hand from the swim up bar. Yeah, that works…..

Tuesday is our first big trip, the Golden circle obvs, because everyone does it. Waterfalls, geysers, tectonic plates and awesomeness.

Wednesday nothing planned through the day, but we are going to see Henry Rollins at the Harper concert hall in the evening. If you don’t know Henry, well, wiki is probably best. We may spend some of Wednesday staking out his likely haunts, either the punk museum (housed in a former public toilet), or any purveyor of vintage vinyl, like the stalkers we are. #Fanatic!

Thursday is big trip 2, Southern Iceland, black sand beaches, glaciers, Game of Thrones etc….

Then we have nothing planned for the rest of our trip, some of our best adventures are when we just wing it. Although that day we lost in the Old Absinth House in New Orleans is one to beat.

Iceland sounds batshit crazy in parts. Penis museum? Check! Aromatherapy shop run by one of the guys from Sigur Ros? Check! Plus we have bars and restaurants to explore of course. For once though, this isn’t a place where our trip is at least partially governed by food. We plan to eat pretty casually and we haven’t factored in anything particularly swanky. One of the bars on our list is themed after the Big Lebowski for example. Because Iceland is a little bit nuts.

Drawing the line at consuming ANY fermented rotten shark meat though!

TTFN, V x

** Posted slightly later due to dodgy train wifi, and apres an obligatory cafe gourmand.