Iceland - The final 1.5 days - Reykjavik and the Blue Lagoon

We were finally back in an urban landscape, one which had gained a reputation for being one of the hippest cities in Europe. We saw proof. Reykjavik over the weekend is one crazy party city. It starts on Friday night, and doesn't really stop going until Sunday.. or maybe later, since we left on Sunday morning. We were wandering around late evening Friday, and the parties were already starting. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the parties were going strong. And when we left for the airport early Sunday morning, they were just stumbling out of the bars and clubs. Bravo for party stamina, Iceland!

OK back to sightseeing - we started out the day at the old city center.

 Radhus, or City Hall was an interesting, where there was a large relief map of Iceland. A nice stop just to get a overview sense of the areas we had driven through. The building itself is built on the edge of Lake Tjornin, which dominates the old city.

City Hall

By the way, the cool weather here bred some spectacularly bright flowers.

We had a fabulous time at a one-of-a-kind museum  called the 871 ± 2 Settlement Museum. The numbers refer to the Viking longhouse unearthed at that spot that is believed to date to the year 871.

Photo Credit: CT Goh

What is remarkable about this museum is the use of multimedia tools to bring out the story of the Vikings, based on this one longhouse. For example, you could press a button which highlighted the kitchen area of the longhouse, and there would be options to show a little animation or narration on how this would look, what kind of tools, decoration, structural elements were used, the people who used them etc. In short, from one small sub-section, you would learn about a whole culture and way of life. It's hard to describe it, but the museum is cleverly done and very interactive. For someone who has been to many, many museums, this one really stood out. Because of the low light in the museum I couldn't get good pictures. I highly recommend a visit though, so no pictures mean no spoilers.

Next stop was the newly renovated National Museum of Iceland, also a pretty well-done museum, lots of Viking paraphernalia. Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to linger so we had to breeze through this one in about an hour.

National Museum of Iceland

With the rain starting to let up, we rounded Lake Tjornin and headed to Hallgrimskirkja, the iconic church we had seen the night before. It was time to head to the top of the tower!

We could see our destination from the lake 

Lake Tjornin

Hallgrimskirkja

Pretty flowers near the church

The view downhill from the church. The statue is of Leifur Eirikson "Discoverer of America". It was a gift from the US to Iceland on the occasion of the 1,000th anniversary of the Althingi (Parliament) in 1930. 

The church doors

Can we call this minimalist Gothic? Interior of Hallgrimskirkja.

View from the top. The dome in the distance is Perlan ... which we explore later that day

I thought these kids' drawings of the church were so fun!

A cold-ish summer day presented the perfect opportunity to visit the Blue Lagoon (it was also close to the airport, where we were dropping off SC for her flight). It was a nice hot soak, although the water was not uniformly warm, which made for some funny moments of us reacting to waves of close-to-scalding-hot water, and alternate waves of cool shiver-inducing water. We didn't take our cameras into the water as we saw some tourists did - double zip-loc bags and raising their arms high above their heads - but we got some on the way out. It was a pleasing experience, and despite its touristy feel, well worth a trip.

The lagoon is actually pretty large, so you don't really feel to cramped in. There are also lots of nooks and crannies where I suspect ... ahem... stuff was happening. 

This part of the lagoon had particularly hot water!

All clean and spa-ed up, we headed to Perlan or "the Pearl" - essentially the city's water storage tanks dressed up with some shops and restaurants. We had a lot of fun taking pictures around the glass dome and taking in the city from a slightly lower height.

Giant Water Tanks

Funny sculptures outside Perlan

Interior.

The Glass Dome

Sunset over Reykjavik

Too much fun. 

Returning to the city center, we did a little bit of shopping. I was amused by the great wall murals around Reykjavik, and the quirky window displays!

As it got later in the day, we got together for our last supper in Iceland.

We had a tremendous time in Iceland. The scenery was postcard perfect, no matter which way you turned. It was a clean, safe, and accessible country. It's not the cheapest place to visit, but it's worth a visit, and as fun as Reykjavik was, a trip to Iceland is defined by it geological and natural wonders. It was my first time to Iceland, but hopefully won't be my last. Next time, I'm throwing in a hike through some of the West Fjords - which we had to skip because of time constraints - and a cruise to Greenland. Greenland!

Now, where else in the world shall I go munching? Stay tuned...

Iceland - Day 6 - The Snaefellsnes Peninsula and the Voyage to the Center of the Earth

We woke on Day 6 to a wet, rainy day. Undeterred, we got on our way to tour the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. The geography of the Snaefellsnes Peninsula is dominated by the Snaefellsjokull glacier of literary fame (read on for more details). I believe on a clear day you'd see the peak of the glacier, but it wasn't happening today. The light wasn't as perfect for photography, but we still got some fun shots. We passed through the small fishing towns of Olafsvik and Rif. 

Makes you wonder, doesn't it. 

The long winding road

All of a sudden, things got dark...

But the clouds soon passed ... and here's another quirky church at Olafsvik. 

We stopped for a stretch at a little fisherman's museum in Rif. We weren't feeling up to touring a museum, but poked around for a bit.

Turf houses at the Fisherman's museum in Rif.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Statue at the Museum. Fishing is a way of life for many in this part of Iceland.
Photo Credit: CT Goh

We made our way to the Ingjaldsholl church, which claims to be the oldest concrete church in Iceland, and possibly in the world. There has been a church of some form standing at that site from at least the year 1211.

The church stands out in the dramatic landscape

The church up close
Photo Credit: CT Goh

A view of the interior through the window. The doors were shut, so we couldn't get in. 

The flora around the church

Church visit over, it was time to hit the bird cliffs on the Southern end of the Peninsula. First was this bright yellow lighthouse at Saxholsbjarg, overlooking some dramatic cliffs.

Apparently, in the summer months, the locals would lower themselves down these cliffs to harvest eggs and sometimes the birds for food. 

Bird on cliff... and yes, that's what the white stuff is. 

We often felt dwarfed by the landscape

More birds on cliffs

Moss and/or lichen (?) on the cliffside made the whole place an explosion of colors.
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Not too far from here was a popular tourist stop - the Lifting Stones at Dritvik. These are four stones lying on the beach which were apparently used to test the strength of wannabe sailors. The largest, called Fullsterkur or "full strength" weighs 154 kg; the second, Halfsterkur or "half strength"100 kg; third was Halfdraettingur or "Half Carrier" at 54kg; and finally Amlodi "Hamlet" or "Weakling" at 23 kg. To qualify as a sailor, one needed to be able to lift at least Halfdraettingur. Surely, you didn't expect them to hire a weakling!

Considering the odds... 

In the end, I believe CT just made it to be a non-weakling. Sharon was decidedly a weakling, at least by sailor standards. Considering that even the smallest stone was.. um.. a significant portion of my actual body weight, I was happy to concede that the life of a sailor was not for me.

Behind the lifting stones, there was a lovely black pebble beach, where we found the remains of the Epine Trawler shipwreck and looked out on to the crashing waves.

The remains of the British Trawler, the Epine GY 7, which was wrecked just East of Dritvik in March 1948. 

The choppy sea that day

Glistening wet pebbles

It was more bird-cliff hunting for us after that, this time at Arnastapi. It was a little too wet for us to go that far ... but just far enough for me to get some great raindrop macro shots, which made me very happy.

The rocky birdcliffs of Arnastapi

Here's a game -- can you spot CT?  

I thought this was just beautiful

Photo Credit: CT Goh

The birds
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

The vastness of it all, and the strangeness
Photo Credit: CT Goh

At the start/end point of our hiking path was this huge statue of Bardur Snaefellsas, the deity of Mt. Snaefell, produced in 1985 by Ragnar Kjartansson. Apparently, Bardur was descended from both giants and men, son of a King in Northern Hellaland in Scandinavia. He staked claim to the land of Laugabrekka by the glaicer at the end of the 9th century. He did not die, but disappeared into the Snaefell Glacier, becoming a nature spirit to whom the locals offered petitions. 

Bardur Snaefell, Deity of Mt. Snaefell
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

We worked up a nice appetite after this 1.5 hour hike along the wet, sodden birdcliffs, so it was time for lunch, and boy, we picked an interesting spot!

Our charming little lunch spot

We were first drawn by the fact that there were more cars than usual in this spot. Given how few other tourists we had seen, we were intrigued. Was this a roadside stop for bus tours? Was there particularly good lunch here? Then we looked a little to the left and saw this:

In the Jules Verne book Voyage to the Center of the Earth, the cave leading to the center of the earth was found here, at the foot of the Snaefells Glacier. The signage speaks for itself:

Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

In the story, the adventurers turned up in Stromboli, 2434 km away from this spot. 

For many travellers, I think Jules Verne's tales fanned the wanderlust, itching for adventures in foreign lands, so it was apt to have run into Verne's universe here in Iceland. As for the restaurant, we were glad for a warm dry place that served half-decent food. It wasn't revelatory, but at least it was warm and tasty.

Re-fueled, we moved on to see our last waterfalls of the trip - Hraunfossar and Barnafoss. Hraunfossar is essentially a stretch of mini-waterfalls falling over a 1 km stretch. Coupled with the sprinkling of flowers throughout the entire area, it made for very pretty scenery.

Hraunfossar

Hraunfossar from a distance

Barnafoss was the exact opposite. It was a churning, fierce waterfall with a tragic past. Barnafoss or "Children's waterfall", was named after two children fell off a stone arch spanning the river and drowned. Their mother had the arch destroyed to prevent the tragedy from happening again.

The churning waters of Barnafoss

Photo Credit: Sharon Chan

Our next and last stop before Reykjavik was the largest lava cave in Iceland, Surtshellir. The rocky, 1.5 km long cave was bigger than we had ever expected, and our initial intentions to explore even a tiny section of the cave were quickly abandoned.

One of four cave openings in this area

These caves are mentioned in Iceland's historic sagas as places where outlaws used to live in hiding. Bone fragments and evidence of ancient human habitation have been found in these caves, dating back to 1000 AD.

This was about as far as we dared to get into the cave. It was very very dark, and very very creepy beyond this point.
Photo Credit: CT Goh

Another cave opening
Photo Credit: Sharon Chan 

That is the look of fear and defeat.
Photo Credit: CT Goh

Anyone considering an adventure in these caves had better pack solid hiking shoes, super-bright spelunking helmut-lights, and a lot of guts. Serious cavers only.

The signboard showing the expanse of the cave
Photo Credit: CT Goh

With the fog rolling in, and the light going away, Surtshellir got considerably scarier... and we drove away towards the bright lights of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital - and biggest - city. There will be more on our exploration of Reykjavik in the post on Day 7 (our last full day in Iceland) but here's one photo I managed to get of the iconic chuch Hallgrimskirkja lit up that night.

At 74.5 meters tall, Hallgrimskirkja is the tallest structure in Iceland.