Reykjavik
Highlight
- After all the drama, arrived at Keflavik Airport at 2am. Caught a maxi-cab to our hotel. By the time we checked in and got ourselves ready for bed, it was past 4am. What a start to the day.
- Breakfast at 9:30, just before they closed the buffet. The food was limited in choice and unexciting, but at least they had nice yoghurt.
- We were all super excited to see the roads were piled high with snow. We marvelled at how thick the snow was and all jumped around in it until the novelty wore off and we realized all our clothes were wet.
- Walked along the coast into the city, with beautiful mountain view and water, and little Puffins swimming around.
- The city itself is quite small, the main shopping strip, Skolavordustigur St and Laugavegur St, is lined with cool shops of things I can’t afford. I did look longingly at some beautiful clothes and shoes. We spent ages in the 66o North store.
- Saw a restaurant that was selling reindeer meat wrapped in pastry…resisted the urge to try…
- Loaded up on tourist brochures at the tourist centre for the next time we want to visit, in summer of course.
- By this time we were desperately in need of a coffee and to get away from the snow. When we found out that Kaffitar has won 2nd place in the World Barista Champions, we were besides ourselves. It didn’t disappoint. The cappuccino was the best I’ve tasted since Australia…The place was packed, and I can understand why.
- The hallgrimskirkja (Hallgrims Church) is probably the best tourist attraction in town. It’s perched on a hill with a statue of Leif Eriksson out the front. The architecture is pretty cool, like harmonica pipes. Inside is ok, but the highlight was definitely the tower (400 ISK), if you can brave the wind. You get to see Reykjavik from all sides. Unfortunately the weather was too overcast to get any decent pics.
- time to look for some sustenance, wondered the streets to the famous hot dog cart, Baejarins Bestu. It’s a little cart, a bit like Harry’s Café de Wheel, it’s an institution in Iceland. There’s really nothing more satisfying than having a hot dog with crunchy onions on a cold winters day.
- Time to visit the pond. More time was spent photographing the ducks and swans, stepping on the ice to see if there were any weak spots.
- We had done everything by about 3:30pm, and as the sun was about to set, it was good timing. Since the weather has cleared, we decided to go to Hallgrims again.
- We missed out on the Einar Jonsson Sculpture Garden last time, so we ventured in this time. All the sculptures were covered in deep snow so you couldn’t really see them, although one really intrigued me…we brushed off the snow to reveal it was of a man and a cow…in a very awkward position. Apart from that, it was like a snow playground. We slid down slopes and sloshed around in the snow.
- We left everyone with their SLRs to capture the fading nights of the church, and walked back to the hotel. Stopped off at Bonus to stock up on our Icelandic products. I was very happy to find Kaffitar coffee beans for sale (and figured that it must be the Starbucks of Iceland). If only we had coffee like that…
- Slokky managed to get us lost on the way back, so had to take a huge detour and track through thick snow before getting back.
- Ate our dinner in the common area. The salmon and bread were quite nice, but the skyr wasn’t to my taste.
- We were already really tired by this time, but we still had the Northern Light tour to go.
- The tours were packed, there were heaps of buses going out. Our guide was this cute old lady who managed to get us quite excited about the Northern Lights. We found out that all Icelanders are very passionate about their country, and she shared her enthusiasm with us.
- Did we see the lights? Maybe…we saw faint hints of the light, a grey band that grew and moved, and then disappeared. It was nothing like what they showed you in the photos. Apparently we caught the end of the lights, a few days earlier they were really active. Better than nothing I suppose. We looked at the photos taken with the SLRs later, and found that the grey bands turned green in the photos…
- The best part though, was walking between the tectonic plates at Ingvellir, where the Icelandic parliament Alingi was founded in 930, which makes it the oldest known functioning parliament in the world. We were between the plates were we saw the first glimpse of the light, which were actually slightly greenish.
- I think what was more exciting was being out in the countryside at night, thick blanket of snow stretched before you, and glazing into the night sky and the stars.
- Got back just after midnight for another exhausting sleep.
Food
- Hotel Cabin buffet:
- ham
- cheese
- cucumber
- tomato
- bread with jam
- oranges
- cereal
- yoghurt with mixers
- Kaffitar Cappuccino (300 ISK)
- Baejarins Bestu hot dog with everything
- fried catfish in spelt and barley batter with potatoes and mango skyronaise
- rye bread
- smoked salmon
- salami
- chocolate and banana skyr
- banana
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