Day Two: Reykjavik, Iceland

It's been a long time since I've properly traveled. Oh, sure, there were the work travels where I did work related things and didn't really get the chance to see or do all of the things I was interested in doing, but it's been years since I've been my own compass on my own time frame and gone where I was interested in going. So here I am, with my awesome husband Rob, seeing all these amazing new things and learning a whole new city from nothing but a Rough Guide to Iceland (which has actually been quite handy).

We landed in Iceland after a mere 1 1/2 hr stop over in Boston, and a 5 hr flight on Iceland Air. The flight was great and we met this great guy named Ravi who sat in the same row as us. Rob and he talked for a while and Ravi was visiting a friend of Denmark for a week between his studies in Boston. The flight itself was good aside from the fact that my on board on demand screen wasn't working after asking on 2 separate occasions for the flight attendants to reset it. That's ok, I had the window seat which provided me with spectacular views like this



We landed without any huge problems and more than a little relief since we'd been traveling all day long. It was 11:25PM Iceland time (4 hrs later than Toronto time zone) and got on our Sky Bus to our hotel Room with a View. After a little bit of confusion (it wasn't the best directed or organized bus service) and question asking, and getting lost with our fellow German travelers, we finally made it to our hotel at about 2:00AM. Signing in was great and the people working the front desk were very helpful and willing to make sure we knew where and what we were doing.
Although we had some difficulty with the elevator (unlike Canada, elevator doors apparently don't open themselves) and the lock mechanism to our room (just can't figure it out!) we opened the door to something AMAZING!

I don't have pictures yet, but the room is just great. It's a loft-style apartment with a full kitchen, living room area and connected bedroom, and a great bathroom with really intriguing rain-fall shower with 3 different settings (natural down-spray, lateral massage spray, and a hand-held shower head). Overall, we're very impressed with the facilities that have been offered to us.

Went to the 24/7 grocery store 5 minutes from the hotel and bought 4500 Kroner (about $45 CAN) worth of groceries. That may seem like a lot for immediate dinner and breakfast covering three mornings, but it's very affordable compared to buying food from delis/coffee shops/restaurants in Iceland. Food and Drink here is expensive if you don't do it yourself.

So this morning we woke up at 9:00am (5:00am Toronto time) and literally I had to drag myself into my clothes and out the door for our exploratory walk of the city of Reykjavik. Once we got going, thought, I was very interested in the scenes unfolding around me. There's an interesting dichotomy in the streets with tourists prowling and some locals drinking coffee on the street cafes or working on laptops just inside.




Rob and I decided to use our guide book and make our own tour around the city. This is the route we took: (see above illustration)
The ORANGE represents our meander to the Reykjavik National Art Museum, which also lead us to this amazing church that you will see below (Fig 1).
The BLUE represents our walk after lunch to the water front and and interesting art installation (also pictured below Fig 2)
The ORANGE represents our walk to the grocery store where we got our food for both tonight (Fig 3) and also for tomorrow's car ride through the country side of Iceland.
Below are some of the very interesting things we saw on our walk. We were interested in avoiding tourist crowds and walking through as much local, pedestrian area as possible. We saw some cool places and enjoyed taking pictures at some less "picturesque" places as well as some great tourist sites.



Take a look:

Fig 1.1: The view from our hotel doorsteps, Room with a View






The mountains are absolutely breath taking and we were up early enough to the the mountains fully uncovered by the cloudy mist that slightly obscured it all day.




Fig 1.2:
This is Hallgrímskirkja which was an amazing thing to see both inside and out.

It had beautiful gothic-style columns and a very open-style concept which was like this interesting clash between modernist simplistic architecture and classic gothic style. the walls both inside and outside were an interesting white, textured concrete which was astounding. The structure was built between the 40's and 90's by a father/son duo (which explains why it took so long). It's incredible and completely worth seeing, even if you're not into churches. There's an unbelievable set of pipe organs inside as well for those interested.





Fig 2.1: Next we made it to the Saga Museum/ Geothermal Power Plant. It's all part of one building on top of one of Iceland's most important historical inclines. It's a hill that portrays the entire flatland of Reykjavik and the surrounding area and was crucial to the military surveillance of Iceland's capital both for the Native Vikings as well as the British Troops based there in WWII. It's a great spot with a Viking history museum as well as a 360degree restaurant and a great outdoor view of the area.



Fig 2.2: The Sun Voyager

Really cool little art installation on the water. We took some time and sat on the sun-heated rocks, then meandered down the "boardwalk" to this piece of art by Jón Gunnar Árnason
It was fun to look at and enjoy a moment of Viking spirit past.


After that we walked back to our hotel street, astounded by the amount or human traffic we had managed to avoid all day during our trip off the beaten tourist path. We hit up the Super market Bonus (only open until 6:00pm) and managed to score food for tonights dinner, tomorrow's picnic lunch and beer/wine for a very reasonable $35 CAN.




We had Marinated Lamb Chops, Fresh green beans and Sweet Potato mash. Yum.


Tomorrow we have our rented car so there will be lots of pictures and stories to share!!