Our plan for today was very specific and involved bus tickets booked at the same time as the whole trip. We took a bus to Landmannalaugar, a place we had visited 9 years ago under similar circumstances and were both eager to revisit.

We were a bit nervous yesterday when looking at the weather forecast; but evidently, we can’t read a weather forecast, as we were planning for the worst and had something very close to a perfect weather!

We left our apartment around 7:30; we had a 30-minute drive to the bus pick-up, and we wanted to grab breakfast and something for lunch before that too. We did all that, the bus arrived early, we boarded the bus, and onwards we were!

The main reason for taking a bus there is that the road is *brutal*. Not in terms of distance – Hella (where we took the bus) to the base station is a hundred kilometers. It’s also 2h45 by bus. The first 50km are not a problem. The last 50 are a track road that is unpassable unless you drive a 4-wheel-drive vehicle, and some argue you need a non-trivial one too (at the very least there’s a couple of streams to cross, and depending where you park a larger river). So that’s definitely not something we’d feel comfortable doing, even if we had rented such a vehicle – so bus it is!

The road is very bumpy but also very beautiful. We finally arrived at the base station (there’s a large camping area and it’s a large Serious Hiking Trail start point), looked at the maps, decided for the hike we wanted and had time to do, and off we went. We did end up doing a very similar trail to the one we did 9 years ago; we were both thinking that being willing to sit almost 6h on a bus (3h in each direction) to redo a hike that we had already done said something about how special that place is.

It is literally one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever had the privilege to visit – and I live in Switzerland. The only reason why I’m not saying “the most beautiful place” is because I did go to Grand Canyon as a kid, and it might come first. (Would need to check.)

Pictures (especially phone pictures that I haven’t processed myself) won’t give a good idea of the magnificence of that place, but have a few, still.

We considered trying to go a bit higher on this hike, there was a path to a lower summit, but looking at the path going up, knowing the path going down was steeper, and having a strict deadline for the bus home made us decide to not do that. It was the right move: the lava field after that was plenty challenging enough, and it would have been difficult for me after that extra part. We still did go to almost the foot of the path in question before giving up and going back to our main path.

After the hike, we were an hour early before the bus would start; we walked around a bit to the thermal source nearby where people were enjoying the hot water, and we flomped back in the bus at the first occasion.

And, just for completion, a couple of pictures from the road back, taken from the bus window!

After the bus left us where we had left our car, we went for dinner (Midgard, great place), and drove home where we were back in the gloomy and windy weather. And both: tired 🙂

The photo album for this day is here: Iceland – 2025-08-24.