Epic Travel → Europe → Iceland → Southwest Iceland → Friðheimar

Location: Golden Circle, Southwest Iceland

Time Required: 1 – 2 hours

Red Tape/Notes: Open from noon – 4pm daily, year round. Reservations are required and are made simply by emailing your reservation request (you can show up and try your luck, and they’ll probably try to accommodate you, but you may have to wait a long time). For more information visit their website.

What’s Nearby?: Gullfoss, Geysir, Faxi, Hrunalaug, Reykjavík, Eldhestar, Thingvellir

If you’re looking for something really different, Friðheimar is a wonderful stop: a portion of a greenhouse where tomatoes are grown has been converted to allow dining, so you have lunch amidst the tomato vines. This could have been a terrible plan, but it’s very well done and is just a delightful experience. You step out of the freezing cold and wind and into another world that’s green and warm and smells like a summer garden. The menu items are limited (I think there are three choices), and they’re all tomato themed, but they’re delicious and the freshly baked bread is simply to die for. Interestingly enough, the desserts have all incorporated tomatoes as well – we were curious enough to order one of each and all of them were quite tasty. You can walk around the greenhouse and see the operation while you wait for your food (or after your meal), and you can also visit the horses outside (they breed horses in addition to growing both tomatoes and cucumbers in their greenhouses). When I announced this stop, there were some sighs and eye rolls at first, but by the end, everyone agreed it was awesome.

Epic Travel → Europe → Iceland → Southwest Iceland → Friðheimar