After said hearty breakfast (and rather large quantities of tea) we headed out into the city. We had nothing planned, so just aimed to wander about till we found something interesting. A few metres outside the hotel we discovered something very interesting.
Well, I say interesting. Dangerous might be more appropriate. Namely that pavements don't get gritted in Iceland. Not as far as we could see. Even with our walking boots we were slipping and sliding all over the place.
Eventually we managed to make it to one of the bridges over the lake in the middle of the city, Reykjavikurtjorn. I think I've missed some accents off that... Umm... Anyhoo. Looked like a nice stroll across the bridge. Really not. The Storm came back again. In fact, it came back so strong that we decided not to argue with it and went a different way. Believe me, ice rain smacking you in the face is not a pleasant sensation.
So we fled from the Storm and took refuge, eventually, in the tourist information centre. I acquired a whole assortment of leaflets and Gemma suggested maybe we should head to the harbour and see if we could go whale-watching. This sounded like a wonderful plan to me (even if I rather suspected it was going to be too windy).
As I suspected the two main operators of the whale-watching boats both said it was too rough to go out today but if we came back tomorrow or Friday we might be able to go. Tomorrow (Thursday) we were going on a full-day tour and Friday... well, the boats went out in the afternoon and we were heading off for a nice relaxing spa trip at just the wrong time. Ah well. Whales will have to wait.
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At this point, it still being rather cold and both of us struggling to stay upright, we decided to find lunch. Which took us to the Laundromat Cafe, a nice little place which really does function partially as a laundromat. Amazing potato wedges and a pretty damn good burger followed. Om nom nom.
Energy stores replenished (if a little sluggish after all the stodge), we wandered up the road and found our way, largely by accident, to the Settlement Exhibition. Amazing. Really amazing. It's below street level, the result of an excavation while they were widening the street (or something). The centrepiece is an original Norse longhouse. I love stuff like this - I grew up watching Time Team - and this, this was just awesome. There's not a huge amount to the exhibition itself, but there's plenty of information about the early settlement of Iceland, plus a whole bunch of little interactive bits. Hurray for touchscreen technology in museums.
Seriously, if you end up in Reykjavik, go check it out. Moving on.
Geekery fulfilled, we decided to brave the weather again and headed for a walk along the bayfront at which point I finally took my first decent photos of the trip. ALL THE PRETTIES.
This delightfully ridiculous looking building is Harpa, home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. It lights up at night. I think it's supposed to be the Northern Lights. Just looks trippy to me.
Iceland has different traditions regarding when to take down Christmas trees to the UK. Which meant this straggly looking specimen was still up and Gemma wanted a photo.
And then we slipped and slid around up the road for a bit. I say a bit - it decided to shower ice from the heavens again so we took refuge in the side streets where it was less blustery. Even more slipping and sliding later, we made it back to the park which surrounds Reykjavikurtjorn and discovered that walking on the sodden, frozen grass was easier than walking on the path. Better than the average Icelandic pavement, that grass, according to Gemma.
Chilly and a bit bored, we left the park and aimed for Listasafn Islands, the National Gallery of Iceland. Partly for the art, but mostly because we needed to warm up. Nice big cup of tea in the cafe fixed that. The Gallery itself... not to my taste. Largely "modern" art (yes, I'm sure there's a more accurate term, but I'm not an artist) which I don't get. Ah well.
Now that I'm writing this up it looks like we did more than I thought we had... how odd. Anyhoos, we decided after leaving the Gallery we'd head back to the hotel - after all, the Northern Lights tour might be going ahead. Snapped a few pics of the lake and downtown Reykjavik on the way past.
Still slidy as hell on the way back. Mitigated slightly by a trip to a lovely little bakery on the corner near the hotel where we picked up some pastries for tea. We'd had a big lunch. Pastries seemed like a wonderful idea.
Aaaaand... then the Northern Lights tour didn't go ahead. Bugger it. Try again tomorrow.
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