Peningagjá, the coin fissure under the footbridge

Peningagjá — the coin fissure, part of Nikulásargjá — is a narrow rift beside the old road down from the visitor centre, filled with groundwater that has filtered through lava for decades. The water is so transparent that the walls appear to fall away into nothing, and the floor several metres down is scattered with coins thrown in for luck. A short footbridge crosses it, which gives you a hand-rail, a leading line and a natural place for two people to stand.

Photographers use it for the impossible-water effect: shoot down from the bridge and the couple's reflection lies on a surface you cannot see, with blue-green depth and coins underneath. Overcast light works best — direct sun blows the surface into glare — and a polariser is the difference between glass and mirror, so expect your photographer to rotate one and reshoot the same frame twice. Wide shots along the fissure, with the rift wall and the valley behind, place the crack in the landscape it belongs to.

This is one of the calmest corners of Þingvellir: small, quiet, off the main gorge current, and a genuinely good place to propose without an audience of forty. Early morning and late evening give it to you alone. In summer the light hangs on until nearly midnight; in winter it is a short window around midday, and the bridge and rock ice up hard.

Safety and courtesy in one line each: the fissure edges are undercut and the rock is slick when wet or frozen, so stay on the bridge and the marked ground; the water is a protected groundwater body — nothing goes in, coins included, and the park now asks visitors not to add to them. Drone rules inside the park are restrictive; check before you plan an aerial.