Golden Circle, Kerid's Iron-Red Slopes and Two Hours at the Sky Lagoon

The Golden Circle, the crater, and two hours at the Sky Lagoon with the ticket included. Þingvellir is where the plates are pulling apart, and where you can stand with one foot in America and the other in Europe, on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Its parliament met here for a thousand years: chieftains making laws, settling disputes, and handing down sentences, some of which ended in the drowning pool. Geysir gave every geyser its name. The Great Geysir has gone quiet, but Strokkur is metres away and goes off every few minutes, and the sulphur in the air makes the point about what is under your feet. Gullfoss takes meltwater off the Langjökull glacier and drops it 30 metres into a ravine, in two steps. The spray reaches the path, and on a sunny day so do the rainbows. Kerið is red because of the iron in its rock, with velvet green moss over the banks and a shallow turquoise lake at the bottom. The Sky Lagoon closes the day, two hours of it: an infinity pool with the ocean in front of it, a seven-step ritual built on Icelandic bathing traditions that alternates hot water, cold water and open air, a bar you swim up to inside a cave, saunas and a café.