We had a rainy drive from our B&B in Portree through Oban, along Loch Ness and into Inverness. Beautiful though - it was nice to see the different countryside once on the mainland vs. what we had been seeing on the islands. There were actually some fall colors in the trees on the mainland!! :) We all felt like we kind of had been missing out on fall, as most of Europe was "behind" in terms of the trees changing colors. Plus, we felt we had missed out on true "Scottish" weather, as it was gloriously sunny the whole time we were there.
We had our last EasyJet flight from Inverness to London, and were happy to leave those small, slow, budget flights behind us. London's airport experience was excellent - we flew into Gatwick, and then had to transfer to Heathrow for our flight into Reykjavik. We grabbed a taxi, and we FLEW down the highway. Glad we paid a little extra for this convenience, instead of trying to figure out the buses, or otherwise. At this point in our trip, we were done trying to figure out and coordinate more public transport options. Our taxi driver even solved the mystery of what the little mini "coffee cup" symbol was on our rental car dash - apparently, it's a function that will flash a signal at you if you start to get tired and drift on the road. :)
We had several hours to kill in London, but not enough to get into the main city, so we became familiar with the airport... otherwise known as we got very familiar with the Tin Goose Bar for a few hours.
We finally made it to Reykjavik, but landed at 11:30pm at night. Thanks to the tips from the awesome lady at the Icelandair check-in desk in Heathrow, we found out we couldn't sleep in the airport as planned, and ended up booking a last-minute hostel during one of our free 45-minute windows of wifi before our flight. We also found out how to book a bus ticket from the airport to the main town of Reykjavik (1 hr bus ride) ahead of time... so we finally ended up in Reykjavik at 12:30am. Then we asked this burly Icelandic guy in the bus station how to get to our hostel... and wandered the streets for a while wondering if he gave us bad directions. We ended up at our hostel, to find the door locked, and after ringing the bell a few times, the sleepy guy on duty showed up. A few more hilarious incidents later, we were able to crash for a few hours. Woke up the next morning, and took a speedy tour on crappy bikes through the town of Reykjavik (mine had minimal brakes and couldn't shift above 3rd gear). Rode along the waterfront, rode to the local municipal pool, that had a variety of different pools, hot tubs, all geothermally heated, and a crazy fun waterslide that a nice couple at our B&B on Skye told us about. Much cheaper than the Blue Lagoon, and way easier to get to - plus a little more fun! Amy and I had an adventure in the locker room getting told by a no-nonsense Icelandic woman to "get naked" as it's a rule all across Iceland to strip and wash completely before entering any of their pools - since they are all natural (chlorine-free) you have to get completely clean before you use them. Makes sense, but was quite the experience!! After our super fast and EXPENSIVE experience in Iceland, we made it back to the airport, and got on our long flight back home.
Pizza was ordered, and good local beer was had (there was a sad lack of good beer everywhere except for Germany) ... and we all fell asleep by 8:00pm watching Skyfall. Sad for our trip to end, and for our dear friends to go home, but we will have memories for a lifetime!
