Hammer of the Gods
We rose once again to beautiful clear skies for our big plans. What would today’s adventures bring you ask? Well, we could have journeyed north to see glaciers, or perhaps toured the Icelandic countryside on horseback. Alas, no. Today we will be taking a long walk over to the bus station to get Covid tests. Yup, we had to take the appointments whenever we could get them and it was smack in the middle of the day. I will end my whining here.
Thankfully, we had our trusted tour guide Deb who had come up with some conciliatory activities to occupy us nearby the aforementioned bus station. We first made our way back to Skólavörðustígur street to get a closer look at Hallgrímskirkja church.
This statue of Leifur Eiríksson was a gift from the United States to Iceland to commemorate the 1000 year anniversary of Alþingi, the parliament of Iceland which we just visited. Remember, guys?
The statue was designed by an American sculptor, Alexander Stirling Calder who won a competition to design the monument in 1929. The pillar he stands on is meant to resemble the bow of a Viking boat, recalling Leifur’s voyage across the sea. Enough Leif facts. On to the church!
Hallgrimskirkja is the largest church in Iceland and among the tallest structures in the country so it’s a perfect spot to get the best view of Reykjavik. For a small fee you can board an elevator to the top of the tower.
We finished up at the church and decided to wander over to a Café Loki to while a way little more time before trodding over the highway to the bus station.
I did not partake in the shark. It’s one of those “survival foods” from hundreds of years ago. The shark contain so much ammonia that it would kill you to eat it straight up. It’s buried and fermented for weeks to remove the ammonia. Jeff said the job was not successful. It still tasted like Windex.
I did however order a dessert that a Facebook friend recommended. Remember that rye bread we had from the geothermal springs? Well, they have an ice cream for that!
With cream & rhubarb syrup. Yummy!
Tests gotten and approval received, Deb had another spot in mind to enjoy some stellar views of Reykjavik.
We did finally reach our destination, Perlan . ‘The Pearl’ stands on top of Öskjuhlíð Hill in the middle of the forest. This is an attraction that is pretty wacky to describe. It’s a museum, a hot water storage facility, an observation deck, a restaurant and an airport beacon. Try writing that brochure.
There are many educational opportunities here. Films, exhibits etc. We were running short on time (more on this later) so we decided to just walk through the ice caves.
On our very first day in Iceland, when we stopped for cocktails, we chatted up the bartender who told us about this Barbecue place that we just had to try.
We made our way back to the hotel to get a nap in. As I mentioned previously, the weather forecast for this week was supposed to be dreary. This meant that the chances of seeing the Northern lights would be essentially nil. This turned out to be false. The projections for seeing the Northern lights were off the charts good, so we booked a tour to see them this night.
Well, I can cross the Northern Lights off my bucket list. To be honest, the picture below is from Deb’s camera. She was able to capture the bright green much better than the naked eye. The lights danced and were utterly captivating, but they were not the brilliant green color one would expect. However, I was enchanted and so grateful to get to see this phenomenon for myself.
We managed to carve out a chock full day despite the obstacle of getting a Q-Tip shoved up our nose in the middle of the day. I said I was done whining, but I have to add one more thing. To add insult to injury, the tests that we had were never checked at either airport on our return trip. Now I’m done.
Coming up tomorrow…the weather takes a turn.