There’s no shortage of breathtaking views in Iceland

ICELAND— Icelandair offers Canadians up to seven days of stopover time in Iceland without any extra airfare charge.

Most people just use one or two to take a dip in the Blue Lagoon and have a few shots of Brennivin in Reykjavik. But I decided to find out, if you like to cycle, how much of the place you could see if you took the full seven days.

Day 1: Oh, right, Iceland’s not that far My last-minute idea to bike Iceland got stymied by full flights. Thankfully, Porter flies to Boston, another Icelandair gateway (where its check-in counter is helpfully next to Icelandair’s).

But Iceland is not that far away, meaning a morning arrival after a four-hour flight, meaning not much sleep, meaning your first day of cycling (I rented my bike at Kria, Reykjavik’s most serious bike shop), is going to be anemic.

I made it to Hotel Ork in Hveragerdi, drained. But after a big meal, the waiter stopped by my table and asked if I’d ever seen the northern lights. He led me outside, I looked up, and a third of the sky was illuminated. I felt full again. Advice: Board the plane ready to sleep or take a bus for the first leg of the trip. Cycle time: Three hours, 47 kilometres

Day 2: From Ork to Anna The road, which Icelanders call The Road — encircling the nation in two lanes and mostly no shoulder — was a little rough, and the traffic heavy enough to be worrisome.

The traffic got better at Selfoss, and the scenery kicked in around Hvolsvollur. Mountains that make the Rockies look old and the Alps DOA — big, baby mountains with liquids, gorgeously pouring out of every orifice. I stayed at Hotel Anna, part of the Iceland Farm Holidays network. Advice: That bus? Take it to Selfoss or Hvolsvollur and stay there the first night. Cycle time: Seven hours of riding, 98 kilometres

Day 3: To the village not even Icelanders bother pronouncing Just past Hotel Anna is Eyjafjallajokull, an ice cap covering a volcano, which erupted in 2010. This section of the ride has you hugging the mountains to your left, and spending time with the sea on your right, especially when you get into Vik, where I stopped for a Viking beer and to take a look at the Ice wear Outdoor Wear headquarters and factory.

Just before Vik is the route’s only really challenging hill, a one-kilometre, 12-per-cent grade with a gravel path for those who, like me, need to walk it.

I blew a tire, learned to fix it, and biked past kilometres of moss-covered rock — which made the landscape look like a Japanese green-tea chocolate Aero bar—to Kirkjubae-jarklaustur, which even residents just call Klaustur. Advice: Buy into Ice wear’s threelayer clothing system in Reykjavik. It’s perfect for the trip. Cycle time: Nine hours, 123 kilometres

Day 4: A Geirland gambol I devoted today to climbing into the highlands behind the Hotel Geirland, another farm hotel, and spent three hours fording streams that fell into vertiginous falls, and lying back on the thick moss that padded the entire rocky plain, the softest natural stuff I ever flaked out onto. Advice: Take a day, whether here or around Eyjafjallajokull, to hike upwards. It’s a whole different kind of beautiful.

Day 5: Between two sands Have you seen Interstellar? You know when they make it to that planet where Matt Damon is lurking? This day is that planet. What turned out to be a thoroughly unfriendly and meanly constructed hotel called Hof 1 is in the middle of nothing but black sand, getting blacker as the day waned. It’s what Icelanders call the Oraefasveit, the wilderness between two sands, Iceland’s very own back of beyond. Advice: Embrace the desolation. It’s part of Iceland’s national character that you don’t get at the Blue Lagoon. Cycle time: Six hours, 88 kilometres

Day 6: The best of the East There’s a bus called Straeto that plies almost the entire road, so if you run out of steam, or, like me, wake up late one morning, making it impossible to get to your next hotel before nightfall (I would not recommend riding The Road in the dark), you can catch it at a designated stop, or even flag it down at any farmhouse, hotel or crossroad.

Trick is, there’s only one a day in each direction. I got to the best hotel of my trek, Glacier world, in two hours, and spent a catatonic halfhour in one of their “hot pots” — hot spring-filled outdoor tubs — watching the stars before heading to bed. Advice: Talk to the farmer-owners of these hotels. Glacier world’s works behind the desk, others you may have to ask to meet. They’ve got sto- ries, and they speak English. Travel time: 102 kilometres (by bus)

Day 7: Back by bus I cycled the last 18 km of my trip into Iceland’s lobster capital, the fishing port of Hofn, and caught the 11:55 a.m. Straeto back to Reykjavik. It’s small — seats 15. There were just three of us — and there’s intermittent Wi-Fi. It got me in at 6:45 p.m. Advice: Don’t nap; this is a great rewind of seven days in seven hours, letting you see things you may have missed while you were on your bike. Bus time: Seven hours, 459 kilometres Difficulty level: 4 — For serious cyclists. For those who think cycling to Montreal from Toronto isn’t totally unreasonable. It’s a long route in Iceland, sure, but mostly flat if you head east, like I did. Bert Archer’s trip was sponsored by Icelandair, which didn’t review or approve this story.

BERT ARCHER Icelanders are only now starting to cycle their own roads, so you have a lot of space to yourself.

VISIT ICELAND PHOTOS The northern lights flicker above Jokulsarlon, a glacial lake in southeast Iceland. If you’re travelling in the autumn, it’s mostly just a question of looking up to see them.

The road is long on Iceland’s south coast, and not always winding. Though it skirts and cuts through many mountains, there is only one minor climb, a one-kilometre stretch just before Vik at a 12-per-cent grade.