Day 15 Reykjavik, Iceland Day 1

This was the day in Reykjavik we weren’t supposed to have... Following the forced abandonment of a day in Greenland due to weather we arrived back in Iceland a day early for the first of now three days in the capital. We didn’t bother organising a tour and spent the day exploring the city. The local council put on free shuttle buses and we arrived in the city centre about 10.30 am and spent about four hours wandering the streets. It’s a pretty enough city, dominated by a large church at the top of a hill which can be seen from almost everywhere.

The bus dropped us outside the new Harpa which is a large concert/conference venue on the waterfront. We roamed the historic centre of the city, now dominated by the usual array of pubs and souvenir outlets and which gave us the opportunity to finally upload some blog content. We had been relying on the ship’s wifi alone for the last few days since leaving Isafjodur and which does not have enough enough oomph to upload anything containing a picture.

Observation - Reykjavik is expensive! Actually Iceland in general is expensive, the meal we had at the Sweet Pig gastro pub (that is the english translation, it has an Icelandic name which I won’t attempt to replicate here) which was a burger for Christine and a pulled lamb dish for me plus a Prosecco and an on site brewed “Orange Blood Pale Ale” (very nice) cost the equivalent of about $110 NZD!!

There are loads of pubs and craft beer venues, and “happy” hour beers come in at about 1000 ISD which is approx $12.50 NZD - the “ordinary” price is approx double that, so not an especially happy hour...

I also visited the Iceland Punk Museum which is a tiny little place dedicated to detailing the history of punk music in Iceland and run by one of Iceland’s original pioneers of the genre, really interesting.

Otherwise we saw the town hall which sits on an artificial lake (pond), the Parliament, several pretty cool sculptures and art works before returning vis the local Vinbudin (Govt run wine, beer and spirits store) to purchase some local beer and wine for responsible in cabin consumption over the next few days. The other interesting thing we came across was the brand new Scenic Eclipse which is a new commercial super yacht run by an Australian outfit and is (after much delay) leaving for her first ever voyage from Reykjavik.

Photos attached show... The pub we had lunch at; flowers celebrating Gay pride week which starts tomorrow; part of the historic district; me with a street monument; the church in the background of almost everything you see; a loo!!; two downtown shots.Read more