This journal entry is packed with activity. We spent the last eight days enjoying many of northern Iceland’s gems and using Akureyri as our base. Akureyri is Iceland’s second largest city with a population around 20,000. We really enjoyed our time in Akureyri. It’s surrounded by natural beauty, offers plenty of good restaurant options, has the energy that comes with a port where cruise ships are in town most days – it was just a great town to call home for a week.
Our first day gave us a chance to go out for a run/walk (the hills made running next to impossible for us flatlanders) down into town. Sandy was able to connect to our friend Sara for a bit in the afternoon. For dinner, we made tacos at home for the first time and they turned out great. Pretty easy and the ingredients were about the same as what we would find in our grocery store at home – even had the Old El Paso brand taco shells.
On Wednesday, I decided to go for my run in the park called Kjarnaskogur. What a find this was. They have so many trails and it’s all through forest – lots of hills. They have camping, volleyball, disc golf, playgrounds, horse trails – so much and lots of people making use of the park. Absolutely loved it.
In the afternoon, we drove to Husavik, which is about an hour northeast of Akureyri. We walked around the town and had a snack at the Lokal Bistro – banana and Nutella crepe, which you can never go wrong with. We spent a couple of hours in the excellent whale museum and learned a ton about whales and the whaling industry.
Husavik is the whale-watching capital of Europe and that is why we came to the town. Before we went out for our excursion, we had dinner at Naustid. We shared smoked trout spread and crackers and then ordered two entrees to share because we both wanted to try two different things. One was mashed fish, which was basically mashed potatoes with fish mashed in as well. The other was the fish of the day grilled (I couldn’t understand the type of fish it was when the waiter said it). We also had traditional sweet rye bread which is actually baked in the ground. Both meals were fantastic.
For whale-watching, we chose Gentle Giants and chose the RIB speedboat. It was a two-hour excursion out into Skjalfandi Bay, which is a large bay in the Arctic Ocean, and our guide was Carla from Barcelona. We dressed warm and they gave us warm suits to wear over our clothes, rain jackets, and life jackets. It was cold on the water, but we were dressed appropriately and never felt cold.
The tour was so much fun – we started with a stop by puffin island and saw hundreds of puffins in the water and flying around. Then we went looking for whales and it was nice because as soon as any boat in the bay spotted one, we could zoom off to the location and catch the performance. It was hard to time things right to get good pictures, which was ok – I was focused on enjoying the moment anyway. We guess we probably saw 30 sprays/breeches and 12 tails when a whale dove. The whales were all humpbacks, although they do have minke and blue whales, and occasionally orcas. We both loved this experience.
We were back home by around 9pm and Sandy had a chance to catch up with our niece, Becky.
For Thursday’s workout, we did a four-mile walk together around the harbor area. We got into a regular routine of seeing which cruise ships were in port on a particular day and then looked up the ship’s itinerary. It’s been fun to see some of the ships multiple times around Iceland. In the afternoon, the day’s trip was to visit another waterfall. This one is called Aldeyjarfoss and what makes it unique is how the earth surrounding it is filled with basalt columns. Pretty cool looking.
We stopped at the N1 gas station and picked up wraps and pretzels to have for lunch out at the waterfall. It was good we had Jimmy (our 4×4 Suzuki Jimny) because this road required four-wheel drive as we got closer to the waterfall – steep and gravel/rock. A non-4×4 could have made it, because the ground wasn’t wet, but I guess they have had to help too many people, thus the 4×4 requirement.
On our way back to town, we stopped at Christmas House, just outside Akureyri. That was fun. It’s a full-on Christmas village that keeps the spirit alive all year long. Lots of Christmas-themed gifts for sale and a small café to enjoy cakes or hot drinks. We grabbed ingredients for ceviche at the grocery store and had that for dinner. One of Akureyri’s characteristics is their stop lights have the red light in the shape of a heart. I read an article that there is some controversy about it – some people wanting to get rid of them because they think it distracts tourists. Those on the other side ask if they should also get rid of all the sheep that distract tourists as well.
Friday was another day trip – this time back toward the east and a drive around Lake Myvatn. This is a large lake in the interior and has some really pretty terrain, especially along the southeast and south coast of the lake. It’s not huge – the drive around it is a little more than 20 miles. The downside at this time of year are the midges that are constantly buzzing around your head. That kept us in the car for some of the stops that we may have otherwise gotten out and done some walking. We deviated from the lake route a little further east to go see the Leirhnjukur lava field. This is filled with hardened lava – imagine that in a lava field – and lots of areas where the hot springs are boiling and lots of vents in the earth. To be there, made me understand better how alive the planet is and the venting feels like a visible indicator of how the earth breathes. That was our favorite stop of the day.
We were back in Akureyri a little before 5 and stopped at Vamos AEY to sample four of their beers and then we went to Baudinn for dinner. Sandy had a salad and I had another excellent burger – they do know how to make burgers here in Iceland.
We prefer not to have so many days of back-to-back heavy activity, but our schedule here made it so that Saturday was another outing after our workouts. Today, we went to the Kjarnaskogur forest together and had a great walk through the forest. The scenery is beautiful but the biggest impression for both of us in the park is the smell of the air – it is so fresh and there are so many pine trees, that to me, it always smells like Christmas. Great start to the day and then we headed about an hour-and-a-half north to Siglufjordur. It was raining when we got to Siglufjordur, so we sat in the car for a little bit and ate our peanut butter and banana sandwiches. This village was at one time known as the herring capital of the world. The boom of the herring industry in Iceland has been compared to the gold rush in the US in the mid-1800s. 7,000 people would come to the town to work – fishing the herring and then processing the herring. The herring could be salted and exported for food or processed for oil used for softening leather, making soap, and other uses. Herring mash was used for animal fodder. We learned all about the industry at the exceptional Herring Era Museum. Sandy talked with one of the staff members and she shared how her grandmother worked in the industry and had a very emotional experience when she visited the museum. It was a hard life and the salt on her hands caused her skin to crack and disintegrate. The experience at the museum was capped off with a salting demonstration – women and children cut freshly caught herring and prepped them for salting and stocking in barrels. It was all highly energetic. After the salting was complete, the accordion came out and the workers encouraged the visitors to join them in a traditional Icelandic dance.
There happened to be a festival taking place our day in Siglufjordur. It had music and the Kiwanis Club was serving fresh cod – fileted and grilled right there in the tent – and hot dogs. All the food was free – pretty nice surprise. No beer tent though. 😊
Before heading back to Akureyri, we visited the Folk Music Centre – centered on Reverend Bjarni Thorsteinsson’s work collecting folk music from all over Iceland so that it would be preserved. We also sampled a flight of beer at what might be the world’s northernmost brewery, Segull 67. Our favorite of their beers was the original Segull 67 Amber Lager. Back in Akureyri we grabbed dinner at Indian Curry House. We both had Chicken Tikka Masala and garlic naan – it was delicious and we were back home around 7pm.
Sunday was finally a day that didn’t have us going out sightseeing. We did go to Kaffi Ilmur for breakfast – Sandy had a Dutch pancake, scrambled eggs, and chai tea latte while I had an English breakfast and hot chocolate. We picked up some groceries and spent the rest of the day at home.
Monday, we both went for our workout in the forest again – we will definitely miss this spot for our workouts. We enjoyed our Greek salads for lunch and then went to a couple of spots we wanted to see in Akureyri. We spent time at the Akureyri Museum and learned about the history of this town – they had really cool pictures from the last 100 years that showed how the town has developed. Then we went to the Akureyri Church, which was designed by the same architect as Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik.
We headed home and did some research on an upcoming destination for us and had spaghetti for dinner. Tomorrow is moving day, which meant we got ourselves packed up before going to bed.
Today was a long travel day and we left around 8:30. Our route took us from Akureyri across the northern part of the country and then turning south to get back to Reykjavik and the apartment we stayed in during our first stint in Reykjavik. We had several stops we wanted to make along the way and it started with the public swimming pool at the town of Hofsos. These pools are all over the country and very much a part of the social fabric of the country. This particular infinity pool is in a beautiful location overlooking the Skagafjordur. You are expected to take a full shower with soap before putting your swimsuit on and then you can go out to the pool. The swimming pool’s geothermal water is kept around 86 degrees and the hot tub is at around 100 degrees. It was a great morning experience for us.
Next stop on the journey was the Glambauer Turf Farm and Museum. This museum is considered to have the best remaining turf buildings in Iceland. This is the way buildings were constructed from the time of settlement all the way into the 1900s. Turf houses were built because of the harsh climate and limited building resources – the turf is very thick and provides decent insulation. Walking through the buildings was interesting and they were filled with information about how life was lived and what tools were used. They are all connected via an interior corridor. The doorways are low, so you have to watch your head better than I did.
We had our peanut butter and banana sandwiches here and then drove a few minutes further on the road to visit the Vidimyrarkirkja, a turf church. The church is beautiful and the greeter was a 16-year-old student who is doing this job for the summer. His interest is in archaeology, which is what drew him to working here at the church and at Glambauer. It was a pleasure talking with him. He has a lot of interests and knowledge. He is very tied into the political process in the United States and also in Iceland. We asked him our question about what he thinks of first when he hears “United States of America” and his answer was: Trump, the flag, and McDonald’s. I predict he may be president or prime minister of Iceland someday.
Continuing our journey, the next stop was a stone church called Thingeyeraklausturskirkja. This church is built with stone (not as common in Iceland) and has many older artifacts that make it one of the most important churches in the country. Its altarpiece is from the 1400s. Unfortunately, it was closed, so we couldn’t go inside.
The last stop before heading south to Reykjavik was a drive around the Vatnsnes Peninsula. It’s a beautiful area with great views in the west across to the Strandir area, but today it was rainy and foggy so we didn’t get those views. We stopped to see an unusual rock crag called Hvitserkur and a spot with a seal colony but we only saw one seal out in the distance.
Headed back to Rekjavik, we stopped for gas and gave Jimmy a wash. We had dinner at the Lemon Mini at the Ollis gas station. They had very good chicken and avocado sandwiches and smoothies. Back in Reykjavik, we made it in time to get our grocery shopping done before Kronan closed and then settled back into our Reykjavik apartment around 9:15pm.
Normally that would have been the end of the day, but tonight we decided to do one more sightseeing activity since we had the rental car for another night. A volcanic eruption started on July 16th about 20 miles southwest of Reykjavik. We left the area on the 14th. The eruption is what is called a fissure eruption, meaning it is in a line as opposed to coming from a single crater. This one caused the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon and the town of Grindavik. Blue Lagoon is open again but I think Grindavik is still evacuated. We checked the status and it seemed like the eruption is still taking place, so off we went around 10:30pm. We are finally starting to get some darkness, which would make the eruption more impressive. As we headed west, we could start to see the smoke easily and then the glow from the lava eruption. Once we turned to the south, it became even more evident. We found a parking area around ½ mile from the lava and we were mesmerized. We could have sat and watched the show all night. In the lower light, it was hard to get my phone camera to capture a clear image and the erupting isn’t consistent, so I wish the pictures would have turned out better. To see it firsthand is something I wasn’t sure I would ever see and it was special. We couldn’t stay all night and so we headed back to the city and we were in bed around 1:30.
