Tuesday, July 14

We disembark today. Pouring rain…had to walk quite a ways to get the rental car but it all worked out. It was only 9am and we couldn’t check into our apartment until 3pm so we drove into Reykjavik to see the church, Hallgrimskirkja. This church looks like it is ready to blast off at any moment! The inside is very plain with an amazing pipe organ with over 5275 pipes. They have a tower you can climb but the weather was rainy and cloudy so we opted not to do that.

I had read about a bakery called Baka Baka and we headed there for a delicious pastry. Turns out it was on one of the best shopping streets in town. We saw a number of cruise ship people. We poked around for a couple of hours then it was time to go to the Perlan Museum with lunch at the museum beforehand. Limited menu: lamb soup $38!! Tomato soup $38!! Small pizza $42. I had been pleasantly surprised with the prices in Iceland so far.They were not much more than Colorado. Until we got to Reykjavik. WOW!! T shirts are $50!! Craziness.

Perlan Museum is a great place. Exhibits on the geology and history of Iceland were very well done. But the coolest part was the Lava Tour and Ice Cave. For the Lava tour, you go into a room and sit on little stools that are “hanging” on a glass floor above  the projected image of grassland, mosses, etc. I can’t really call it a 360 degree movie because it was over your head, below your feet, and all around you except for behind you. First you travelled over land to see an exploding volcano ( the Fagradalsfjall explosion of 2021) then we went into the volcano, 6500 feet into the ground. The temperature and depth were displayed and it registered over 2000 degrees Farenheit. At one point, you went underwater and it was a little jarring as you saw the water coming toward you! We followed the crater down and then as the lava rose, so did we!! Up and out of the top of the volcano. It was  very cool experience and so well done. We all agreed that Disney could learn a thing or two from them.

The Ice Cave was cool though I have been in a real one in Colorado. But this was real ice and it was 5 degrees. You walked through several rooms and you could feel the ice, sit on an ice throne and stay in as long as you wanted though it felt pretty cold, pretty fast. The planetarium movie about the Aurora Borealis was nice but I was falling asleep…too dark and too calm!!!

Then we checked into our apartment and it was great. We had 2 bedrooms, a living area, dining table, kitchen with dishwasher and oven, and a bath with a huge tub! Paul was awakened one morning at 2am to a newspaper being delivered in through the mail slot! 2AM!! He walked outside and could not believe the number of people walking around and riding bikes at that time of night, though remember it doesn’t really get dark this time of year.

A few minutes rest and off to our Food Walking tour. This tour combined some history of Iceland and Reykjavik with some yummy sampling. The first stop was slow cooked lamb shoulder served open faced on a flatbread, kind of taco like: shredded with a topping. I have to say that even though lamb has been the most available dish on this whole tour (Norway, Shetland Islands, Faroe Island and Iceland) it is not as good as our lamb. Not sure if it is the processing, the cooking method, or the seasoning. This lamb tasted kind of like brisket. The lamb in the soup at the Perlan Museum could have been mistaken for chicken easily. It is lighter in color and taste than our lamb. (Now the lamb on the ship was very good and we had chops a number of times). This stop also included arctic char on chickpea blini with horseradish sauce, roe, crispy lentils, and yuzu elderflower dressing. Arctic char kind of looks like salmon but is milder. I am wondering if the fish we had on our Ayureyri was artic char instead of salmon. Next was Lamb soup which was exactly the same as the soup at the Perlan except the lamb was more tender. We had arctic char again at another stop but this time it was baked in honey, butter, and lemon with cherry tomatoes and almonds and it was delicious. Plokkfiskur is kind of a throw together leftover dish for the Icelanders. It has boiled cod mashed with potatoes, onion, garlic, celery, lime, white wine, and cream and butter. It reminded both Jackie and I of tuna casserole and was not very appetizing. It was served with Icelandic Rye bread which is much more like our banana bread than our rye bread, The traditional Icelandic Hot dog, made with 80% lamb, was next. We were all too full to eat it so we got vouchers to come back another time.  Then came the dish I have been wanting to try: Hakarl or fermented shark!!! It is an Icelandic tradition and even though it was eaten out of necessity in the old days, now it is used for special festivals. A greenland shark is fermented by being buried for 6 to 12 weeks. The shark is poisonous if eaten fresh but this fermentation renders it harmless.. When it is buried in the ground it starts to get an ammonia taste and smell. The piece of shark is about as big as a sugar cube. The Icelandic tradition is to accompany it with a shot of Brennivin, a clear unsweetened aquavit flavored with caraway.  I opted to do that and I tell you the shark was more pleasant than the booze!!! We finished this all off with Icelandic Rye Bread Ice cream with carmelized rhubarb syrup which was delicious!

We had reservations at Sky Lagoon for 8pm.I was so tired and if it had not been that I was the only one insured to drive the car, I may have bagged but so glad I did not. We were following Google Maps through an industrial park and were just starting to get suspicious that we had somehow gone the wrong way and then we made a turn…and there it was!!! You walk directly from the shower into the lagoon and it is a lovely 98-100 Degrees. You walk or swim through a little pathway of rocks and then it opens up into a big infinity lagoon. Holding onto the edge, you soak and relax while almost melting into the ocean. After you soak for a bit, you go into the Ritual area and do the sauna, steam room, salt scrub, cool mist, and elixir (crowberry juice) The sauna is amazing. You sit in front of a window that was about 10 feet high by maybe 30 or 40 feet long and the ocean is staring back at you. So peaceful. And the window was so clean it took me a bit to realize that there was actually a window. 

Then back to soaking while drinking a sparkling rose (jackie), a Sprite (Paul) or a non-alcoholic Blueberry Mojito (me). What a simply lovely experience. Driving back to the apartment was fortunately only about 15 minutes because I was cooked!!!