Iceland – Land of LIES (Day 5)

We woke up to more weather and road closings, but we were making the most of it, right? New attitude and such (at least for me). D.Rough made us an awesome breakfast and we just had a very slow-moving day.

We soaked in the sauna for a bit and relaxed.

Before we knew it, it was the afternoon and we wanted to check out this famous greenhouse where most of the island’s tomatoes come from. It seemed interesting to me, but I wasn’t sure I was completely on board. There was a small break in the weather and the greenhouse wasn’t a long drive, so we went for it. It was a challenge finding the right entrance to this place, since there are a lot of service entrances, but we figured it out by following a tour bus in (and then running into the building while it was parking to beat all the passengers on that bus.)

They were really busy, even in the winter, so they asked if we could wait possibly an hour. Of course we could. We had nothing else to do and it was crazy snowing outside. We put our name in and walked around the greenhouse for a bit. They’ve got all kinds of cool hydroponic things and bees all over the place. They do more than just tomatoes at this greenhouse, so there were other kinds of plants around.

There are boxes full of bees that potentate all the plants and just come and go as they please. Pretty wild.

Of course, we ended up at the bar after our little jaunt around the greenhouse. They’ve got a few tomato-based drinks – think bloody marys – and some wine and beer. We both stuck with some Icelandic beer.

We didn’t wait very long at all before they came over and seated us. A very friendly waiter came over and asked us if we’d been there before. We said no, so then he asked us if we wanted the full story of the greenhouse or if we just wanted to dine. We told him we wanted the full experience. He gave us all the details and facts and figures. It’s a very interesting place, honestly.

We looked at the menu, of which everything is tomato based. We decided on the unlimited tomato soup (I know, right, but we made the right choice) and bread, and I got a green tomato bloody mary (which was one of the “healthy” ones).

The soup was, as you’d expect, the best tomato soup I’ve ever had, bar none. That being said, the even better part was the ridiculous breads that they had there next to the soup. They were all covered in melted cheese and seasonings or olives and I ate waaaaay too many pieces. Seriously, like 10 giant pieces – I don’t regret it one bit. And they have basil plants at the tables with herb-cutting scissors, so you can snip off fresh basil leaves and put them in your soup. It definitely added to the experience.

We were very intrigued by the tomato-based desserts, so I ended up getting a little clay pot of cheese cake covered with a green tomato jam, cinnamon, and lime. It sounds really weird, but it was fantastic. We both loved every bite of it. It was a dessert to remember, without question.

We checked the weather map when we got ready to leave and it sounded like the winds were picking up. We really only had one place to hit on the way home. It’s a huge crater (caused by an underground explosion) sort of in the middle of nowhere – the Kerid Crater. You have to pay a small fee to park there and check it out, but you can do it pretty quickly. You can walk around the whole crater in like ten minutes and you can even go down to the water – which is frozen in the winter. It looked like some people already had done that and written fun stuff in the snow. Hilarious.

It was incredibly windy and cold at this crater. The sun was starting to go down and the wind was definitely howling. We didn’t last long here at this crater out in the elements. We headed home to make some dinner and go to sleep, since we had an exciting day tomorrow – We’re going to Reykjavik!!!

Day 4   |   Day 6