In hardly any time at all we’d collected our bags and made our way outside the Keflavik terminal. While many aspects of the arrivals buildings and terminals felt in keeping with an international airport, the ground transportation area felt small-town!

It’s around 45 minutes from Keflavik to Reykjavik, and taxis are very expensive so almost everyone takes one of the excellent buses. We’d booked with Airport Direct and went to wait at the designated part of the lot.

Fortunately for us the weather was spectacular, as there’s limited cover in the waiting area. While we had booked a specific timeslot in advance that really didn’t seem to matter, just show your email confirmation and get on board.

Quite quickly our bus pulled around and we boarded as our cases were loaded into the luggage “basement” under the seating area. Your email ticket is scanned and thus the system knows if you’ve booked a hotel transfer along with the airport transit. Buses all head to a hub in Reykjavik a little outside the center of town, and you’ll switch to a mini-bus for the final leg to your hotel. Once we reached the hub we were told which of the waiting mini-buses to board and identified our cases so they could be loaded with us. For those going to the cruise terminal the bus we were on was headed there after dropping us, so those folks could just stay where they were.

To minimize traffic chaos, the mini-buses stop at designated Bus Stops and you’ll be told which yours is based on your hotel. Ours happened to be the first stop, about 10 minutes ride from the hub.

I’d selected the Fosshotel Lind for several reasons:

• Easy walking distance to downtown, but far enough that it wasn’t likely to be noisy
• Reasonable price, by Icelandic standards, at around USD $228 poer night
• They specifically mentioned early check-in, valuable for us since we knew we’d be arriving fairly early in the morning

It’s by no means fancy from the outside, but it looked in keeping with the area. Reception was pretty small and casual, with an attractive seating area and bar. Our check-in was uneventful and we were provided early access to our room at no additional charge. The elevator ride up reminds you that things are smaller in Europe, and the room really drives the message home!

Just big enough for us to open both suitcases on the floor and still access the bed, the decor reminds me of one of the demonstration rooms at Ikea, if all the furnishings were removed. Minimalistic doesn’t come close to doing it justice, but the bedding was very clean and comfortable, and the wet bathroom an acceptable size. Perhaps most importantly, it was really, really, quiet with excellent blackout curtains!

After showering to freshen up we decided to hit the streets and explore Reykjavik!