Buying knitwear and ceramics in Rykjavik

Last morning in Reykjavik, shopping for knitwear, ceramics, visited the Art gallery. Bus out to the airport, flight home, beautiful Britain, late back.  

Went out to the Icelandic wool shop and bought the green jersey I liked. I then wandered round the shops and bought a ceramic pot that captures the blue light of Iceland. I walked over to the branch of the Icelandic modern art gallery. This is set in a park and is a modern light filled building. People were around in the gallery enjoying the space. I browsed the exhibition of a famous Icelandic painter called Kjarval who had a modernist style. I liked the way he captured Icelandic scenes. There was also a huge Picassoesque painting with a large figure of a man, a woman with a whip, a couple dancing and other imagery. Interesting and complex. I got back to the hotel just in time catch my airport transfer.  

On the flight home I had a fantastic view over Britain, seeing first the Hebrides, then the Lake District, then the vast conurbation of Manchester and then the Peak district. It was 29 degrees when we landed, a 15 degree temp difference from Reyjavik. I took the Tube home; it was full of people in summer clothes.  

Good Reykjavik modern art gallery
Bad crowded airport
Surprising beautiful clear views of Britain

400 km drive to Reykjavik

400 km drive to Reykjavik, covered by insurance for car, evening in Reykjavik

It was a dry day with sunlight and cloud. I drove past Akureyi university since buildings there had been displayed in the architecture exhibition. The buildings were small scale; the university only has 1500 students. There was an attractive sculpture of a bell.

The drive was lovely, the long sections through green valleys with small farms, then up hillsides. I also drove next to wide river beds. The scenery is American in some ways with a grandeur of scenery but small scale habitation. Even the towns on the R1 are small. I stopped in Blonduos and looked at a very attractive modern church built of grey stone and with clean lines. I picnicked high up and overlooking lava fields. I stopped in Borganes and had tea at the settlement centre. It clouded over as I approached Reykjavik, enveloping one of the glaciers I hoped to see. I struggled to find the drop off place for the car but managed by using my phone and a map to get there. When I did get there I told them about the damage and filled in an accident report, they were quite relaxed about it and pointed out that at least no one else had been hurt. The young man checking the hiring said that it was my lucky day cos I had taken out full cover for damage so I only had to pay £150, it would have been 10 x that without cover. I was v relived.

My last hotel is in the old part of town, Odinse. I enjoyed going out and browsing the shops, buying a Bjork CD and sitting in a cafe reading. Had a v elegant tapas type supper in a cafe I had seen last week, Reck, close to the big church, nice fish, mackerel and cod but v small portions. Had chocolate crepes in another cafe and so to bed. V pleased with my driving, it took about 8 hrs with stops, a bit longer than I had estimated.

Good thing the drive
Bad cloud on the mountains
Surprising the pleasure of being let off a huge damages bill for the car
 

Art galleries in Akureyi

Art galleries in Akureyi, supper at Strikkid, live music  

I wandered through the town up to the old part to see the town museum. This had an interesting recreation of the town over the last 100 years. It is amusing to see the different scale of things in Iceland; Akureyi been a municipality when it had 249 citizens, now it has a pop of 15 000, it acquired a secondary school in 1904. It also has a university with 1500 students. There was also a rather worthy exhibition of the first female presidents' dresses. I then visited the house of the poet Nonni, a Victorian Icelandic house. 

I had a late lunch at cafe Blaa Kanan, it was full of tourists because a vast cruise ship and docked a few hours discharging 3000 visitors into the town. I wandered through the summer art festival which was in local galleries. The Modern Art gallery had an exhibition about town architecture and I saw examples of recent work including one on the university and the cafe in public garden here. I also saw an exhibition called the “Conspiracy of Pleasure” which seemed to be mainly about sexual pleasures, with many phalluses in different forms. I visited a couple of art galleries, in one the artist had work that looked like a solid snowflake from that she called a mandala.

I visited Lystigardurinn, the world’s most northerly public garden. The garden is at the top of the hill and faces south. It has small trees and lovely flowerbeds with clematis, aquilegia and other plants. There were many tourists there noting the plants that could be grown here. It also had a lovely café with a large new window full of light. In the evening I had an excellent fish supper at a posh restaurant called Strikid which has roof top views of the fjord. I finished the evening listening to a popular Icelandic rock band (3 guitars, 2 keyboards, drummer, and vocalist) play. Their show comprised many jokes in Icelandic so I missed a lot of the humour and left after the first set. I had shared a table with two middle aged women (nurse and head teacher) who were friends and had come for the band. They were interested in my Icelandic travels. 

Pacing myself for the long drive to Reykjavik tomorrow. 

Good: the garden
Bad the Icelandic comedian (jokes incomprehensible)
Surprising: the art festival
Hotel Icelandair Akureyi

Husavik whale museum and watching

Drive to Husavik whale museum, museum of exploration, whale watching, puffins, fish and chips in Akureyi 

I drove over to Husavik for more whale watching. I wanted to do this again because the bay there is the best place to see whales and I hoped to see more than in the Akureyi fjord. 

Husavik is an attractive little fishing port that has morphed into a whale centre. There are at least three different whale trip companies. I visited the whale museum. and enjoyed learning about the different types of whale, their appearance and habits. There were also huge whale skeletons from stranded whales displayed; the one from a blue whale had a fine blue setting and a baby whale skeleton. This made the whale watching much richer. I went on a smaller boat wearing huge waterproofs and with about 30 people on the boat. I sat next to a woman from Southampton who was on a bird watching tour with a group of 12. Our first stop was an island home to thousands of puffins. I learnt to identify the by their fast busy flight. The cliffs were pockmarked with holes for puffin nests, there were hundreds flying around the rock and picking up fish from the water. We then saw about 4 humpbacks. Whale watching is about the glimpses that one gets of these creatures, I saw blow holes, a glimpse of a whole breaching and the huge black flukes of the tails going down for a dive. Again we saw whales being playful. It is an experience that one has to do a lot of self-construction on. I looked out at the grey choppy waters and am amazed that people could go whaling with tiny boats in the 19 c. I am also baffled that nations want to kill these creatures, they are so beautiful and it violates the marine environment. 

I also went to the museum of exploration which is an eccentric collection based around women explorers, the Arctic and the moon. The museum has display about women explorers at the front with panels that included a young Australian woman sailor who did a solo circumnavigation of the globe. Later on there was a section about an Icelandic woman who has done a South Pole exploration. There was then a fascinating section about how women were prevented from joining the NASA space programme in the 1960s because of prejudice. 

On my way back I stopped to look at the beautiful light coming down through clouds onto the grey arctic waters a moment of great beauty. 

I had a long drive back to Akureyi getting just in time for supper of Icelandic fish and chips in a cheerful cafe, two pieces of cod and nice thin cut chips. Back at the hotel I chatted to the receptionist who is a student alternating work and travel. It is much easier to chat to people when one is solo.

Good: whale watching
Bad:
Surprising: The museum of exploration

Akureyi whale watching

Coastal Drive from Sauoarkrokur to Akureyi, whale glimpsing in the evening  

Chatted to the woman running the B&B who had a full house of 26 last night. She was very pleased with the tourist boom.

She advised me to take the coast road to Akureyi. It was a beautiful drive with blue sea, snow on the mountains and green slopes lower down. I just stopped to admire the view every now and again. 

Siglufordur was a fine little old fishing town. At the height of the herring boom there had been millions of fish processed there daily in factories. The fish had been landed on many wharves now changed into eating houses. The herrings were over-fished in the 50s and 60s and the population only recovered after a fishing ban. The Herring Museum was a low light recreation of the fishing industry. The centrepiece comprised two large fishing vessels that one could walk around. Lots of fishing gear, tackles and nets etc. were hanging up. It was a rather melancholy sight and would have been improved by better lighting and more explanation. I sat in the old harbour area with many other tourists including Icelandic bikers and had salmon and mackerel salad. 

I chatted to a woman who runs unions in N Iceland. Everyone working in Iceland is in a union and pays 1% of their salary to it. So the unions are quite powerful.

There are several political parties here including a pirates’ party of people wanting transparency and those 3 MPs work very hard but have rejected ministerial office. 

Akureyi is pleasant town with nice streets with old houses and shops. I think I shall enjoy my 3 days here. 

I went whale watching on an evening sailing. There were about 40 people on a boat. We had a young female guide who explained that we were looking for blow holes to indicate the presence of whales. One has glimpses of whales; first as they breach the surface of the water, then the pectoral fin as they go down for a deep dive. We saw about 4 whales playing around in the fjord, the last one was also playing around with his flippers. It was a beautiful and slightly mystical experience. The light was also beautiful with a gorgeous sunset at midnight. I felt very rewarded to have seen whales on my first evening out here. 

Good: the coastal road to Akureyi
Bad:
Surprising: seeing whales straightaway
Hotel Nordurland Kea hotels 2 nights