Arctic Journey: Reykjavík

On July 18th Joan and I flew to Iceland to begin a back-to-back (two itineraries strung together) with Lindblad Expeditions, which would visit Iceland, Greenland, and two islands of Arctic Canada, Devon and Baffin. This post is the first in a series, which will take a couple of months to complete, describing that trip.

We arrived in Reykjavík at about 6:00am, which was 2:00am by our home clock, so it was a day without a night (or sleep). Our contingent was bussed from the Keflavik airport to the hotel Icelandair Natura, on the grounds of the domestic airport.
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There we were given day rooms in which to recuperate and wash up before a group lunch. Joan and I take the approach of "bash on" in coping with jet lag, so after a brief pause in the day room we embarked on a walk. First, we headed up through a park to the Perlan (Pearl) situated on top of the adjacent hill.

The hemispherical structure was added to four hot water storage tanks in 1991, creating space for restaurants, shops, and a museum. We didn't go inside -- it hadn't opened yet -- but circumambulated the structure and headed down the hill, passing by an artificial geyser.

Joan and I strolled past the University and paused at the edge of the Nauthólsvik geothermal beach, which opened in 2000.

After our group lunch back at the hotel we all boarded buses for an afternoon city tour before boarding our ship, the National Geographic Explorer. Our city tour kept us rolling; the National Museum and the Hallgrímskirkja Church were where we spent the most time. I don't have any pictures from the museum -- our group was milling about and I'd been up for, oh, 36 hours at this point. One great "exhibit" was the outline of a Viking longship in the floor. If you think that spending hours in a cramped airline seat is torture, imagine spending weeks at sea in one of these open-air warships.

Here's a photo of the exterior of the church, the primary landmark of Reykjavík. There is freedom of religion in Iceland, but the state church is Lutheran.

The interior, front ...

and towards the back.

In front of the church is a statue of Leif Ericson, donated by the U.S. in 1930, on the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the Althing, the Icelandic parliament.

Then our bus arrived at the ship, which wasn't ready for us yet. We were supposed to arrive no earlier than 5:00pm, but the guide thought the instruction was no later than 5:00pm, and we showed up on the dock at 4:30. We had to wait a few minutes while the staff scrambled into proper dress and position, and then we boarded the Explorer.

While the ship was still docked I could see the historic harbor locomotive Minor, now on exhibit, one of two sent to Iceland in 1913 for the harbor project.

With us in the harbor was an Icelandic Coast Guard ship.

In addition to being experts at sub-Arctic search and rescue, disposing of World War II naval mines, and the like, the Coast Guard was involved in the Cod Wars with Great Britain.

The large building in the background is the new Opera House, which opened in 2011.

Then it was off to sea, to arrive in the morning at Breiðafjörður, Iceland's second largest bay, and the island of Flatey.