Friðheimar tomato farm on the Golden Circle
What the Friðheimar stop includes, why lunch is almost never in the tour price, and which Golden Circle tour books you a table rather than dropping you off.
The short version
- Friðheimar is a working greenhouse near Reykholt that grows tomatoes year-round on geothermal heat, with a restaurant among the plants.
- Golden Circle tours including the farm start at about €111 from Reykjavík — the same price as tours without it.
- Lunch is almost never included. The tour buys you entry and time; the soup is paid for at the table.
- Only some tours reserve a table. Without a reservation the restaurant is often full and you get forty minutes of looking at plants.
- The horse show in the stables is included on some tours and not others — check the inclusions, not the title.
Yes, add it, but read the inclusions first. A Friðheimar stop costs nothing extra on most Golden Circle tours — €111 with the farm, €111 without — and the greenhouse is a more interesting forty minutes than another roadside photo stop. What varies enormously between tours is whether you get a guided visit and a reserved table, or simply a car park and good luck.
What the place is
Friðheimar is a family farm near Reykholt that has grown tomatoes and cucumbers under glass since 1995. Iceland has no summer worth the name for a tomato, so the greenhouses run on geothermal water for heat, electric light through the dark months, and imported bumblebees for pollination. The result is roughly 370 tonnes of tomatoes a year from a country at 64 degrees north, which is the sort of quiet engineering Iceland does well and rarely advertises.
The restaurant is inside the greenhouse, among the vines, at greenhouse temperature and humidity. The menu is essentially tomatoes: a soup with unlimited fresh bread, a green tomato and apple pie, a Bloody Mary bar. It is a set piece and it knows it. It is also genuinely good, and the warmth after a morning at Gullfoss is worth something on its own.
There are also Icelandic horses in the stables next door, with a short show explaining the tölt.
The part that catches people out
Lunch is not included. On essentially none of these tours. The price you pay covers transport, guide, entry to the farm and a slot of time; the soup is settled at the table, and it is restaurant money rather than petrol-station money.
That is fair enough. The trap is the second thing: the restaurant is small and busy, and a tour that has not reserved seats cannot conjure them. Golden Circle and Waterfalls with Friðheimar Farm (from €136, nine hours) is honest in its own wording — it stops at Friðheimar for lunch, not included — and also adds Efstidalur dairy farm and Kerið, which is a reasonable day. But if the greenhouse tables are full when you arrive, you are looking at plants.
By contrast the Golden Circle Small Group Tour with Friðheimar Farm Visit (from €111, nine hours, minimum age eight) lists a reserved table for optional lunch, a guided walk through the greenhouses and stables, a tomato tasting and the horse show, plus Kerið admission. That is the version most people picture when they book this.
The alternatives at the same price
Golden Circle & Friðheimar Visit is from €111 with farm entry included, minimum age four, and explicitly says you may bring a packed lunch — the cheapest honest way to do the day with small children. Maximum nineteen passengers.
Kalman’s Golden Circle with Friðheimar is from €125, minimum age one, and includes the stables where you can meet the horses.
If you would rather finish warm, two tours bolt a lagoon on. Golden Circle, Friðheimar & Laugarás Lagoon is from €128 for ten hours with lagoon entry included — Laugarás is small, local and quiet, and ten minutes from the farm. Golden Circle, Friðheimar & Sky Lagoon is from €209 for eleven hours with a Sky Lagoon Pure Pass, minimum age twelve, ending back in Reykjavík at the sea. The Sky Lagoon version is the better bath and the longer day.
When to leave it out
If you have four hours and want the Golden Circle done, skip the farm. If you are travelling with someone who dislikes heat and humidity, the greenhouse is about 25°C with the air thick enough to notice. And if you are self-driving, book a table at the restaurant directly a few days ahead rather than arriving hopeful — that is the whole difference between a good stop and a queue.
Our honest take
Take 150545. Same price as a plain Golden Circle, with a guided greenhouse visit, the horse show and a table held for you, which removes the one thing that goes wrong here.
Take 1116176 if you want to end the day in warm water without adding an hour, or 691950 if you would rather have Sky Lagoon and do not mind eleven hours.
And order the soup. It is a bowl of tomato soup and it costs more than a bowl of tomato soup should, and you will still think about it later.
