3 posts tagged “reykjavik”
By Noosha
We're off on an 8 day countryside farmhouse self-drive tour. We're not sure what internet connectivity will be like at each farmhouse, but we'll be in touch time and internet permitting.
Our itinerary *click*. The only difference is that we're staying one extra day in Akureyri so that we can go over to Grimsey island and cross over the arctic circle. Yeah!
By Noosha
Today was more cerebral than picturesque. Indeed! So we do apologize for the lack of scenery pictures.
Today we visited a couple of museums. The first was an archaelogical dig of an early Viking settlement circa 870ish AD. The outline of mud-brick that was formerly the wall wasn't as interesting as the design and use of visual technology in the museum. The wall was covered in early grassland imagery of Reykjavik with digital screens that showed ghosts of Vikings doing what Vikings did to survive (killing sheep, shoveling dirt, etc.). You could also see maps and images that tracked the ethnic and linguistic roots of early settlers (in short, Norwegians and Irish slaves/wives). We would recommend the Early Settlement museum for the experience and not so much the dig, unless you're quite the buff.
The second museum was the Cultural House where they display Icelandic sagas from medieval times. VERY interesting. With pure dumb luck we caught the only tour that's offered once a week describing the manuscripts, including how they were made, their contents and how they've influenced more recent history. (Thor from Marvel comics, anyone?) The sagas not only told the story of early Icelanders, but also recorded key historical periods of Eurasia such as the rule of Alexander the Great. We felt incredibly priviledged to be able to look at these dozen manuscripts. It seems like something that would be hidden in a deep vault of some unknown European library to be written about centuries later by Dan Brown.
The rest of the day we window-shopped (Reykjavik is fantastically stylish), and ate street food.
I (Noosha) don't normally care for hot dogs or pylsur as the Icelanders call them, but these were admittedly delicious.
As we were walking home we stumbled across the waffle truck that we had been searching for since day one. You can see how excited we are. (pics coming soon. maybe.)
That's it! Today we went to Vestmannayjaer. We'll definitely have some pics to share from there.
By Brian And the journey begins. We departed LAX at 8:25 AM on Saturday, June 13th. Five or so hours later we landed in Boston's Logan Airport for a 4 hour layover before a four and half our flight to Iceland. We decided to stay up the entire time, which we would later regret. Upon arrival in Keflavik International Airport we met someone from the tour company, Icelandic Farm Holidays, which we will be using after our time in Reykjavik. She took us to our rented apartment in Reykjavik, which is about 45 minutes from the airport. The weather was typical Iceland, permanent intermittent rain. After a few panicked moments trying to reach the apartment owners we discovered that our unit was occupied until 11:00 AM and we would not be able to check in until 12:00 PM, some four hours later. This is when the regret kicked in for not sleeping on the plane. We set off on foot to explore downtown Reykjavik at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning tired from flying with no sleep and way before anyone was awake. Luckily Reykjavik is a beautiful city. We walked along the streets in the main shopping district looking for a cafe to get some coffee and food. Broken glass on many sidewalks was evidence of much partying the night before. We managed to find a little bakery opening up were we had cups of coffee and some small Euro breakfast nibbles (i.e. small roll with cheese, butter, and ham). Having only killed an hour or so we kept exploring the city. We quickly found ourselves at the Hallgrímskirkja Church. The church is the most prominent building on the Reykjavik skyline and one of the best places to take photographs of Reykjavik. Unfortunately the building is covered in scaffolding all the way from base to top. One can still take the elevator to the top and see out small pot holes with scaffolding obstructing some of the view and limiting photography options.
Views from the Hallgrímskirkja Church. The highest building on the Reykjavik skyline.
Statue of Leif Ericsson in front of Hallgrímskirkja Church
Hallgrímskirkja is famous for its pipe organ. It is one massive structure. We were lucky to be there when the organ conductor was warming up for the 11:00 AM service. You could feel the bass notes in your gut it was so powerful. Quite a treat.
So far Iceland has been wonderful. Great people, striking scenery, and excellent food. We ate dinner at the Fish Market. We both started out with the Lobster Soup featuring Langoustine, I had the Atlantic Salted Cod and Noosha had the Grilled Char from Klaustri (see menu here). The restaurant specializes in fresh seafood prepared with a fusion of traditional Icelandic and Asian-influenced cuisine. Think high end West LA with ridiculously fresh sea food.
