East Greenland: First, Reykjavik

Welcome to blog post #400! I never imagined such a number when I started reporting on our barred owls back in 2009.

In August Joan and I embarked on an journey with Natural Habitat Adventures to their East Greenland Base Camp. We had taken a ship-based trip in 2013 that visited one fjord in East Greenland, but otherwise docked at towns on the much more populated west coast, including the capital, Nuuk. The east coast has historically been more difficult to reach and is much less settled; its largest town, Tasillaq, has about 2,000 people. The easterners also speak a different dialect of Greenlandic from the westerners.

To get to the east coast of Greenland we first had to fly to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Joan and I arrived a day ahead of most of the group. After a seven-hour layover at JFK we took a sleepless overnight, 5 hour flight to arrive in Iceland in the early morning. Our strategy was to keep active on our extra day in order to stay awake.

The Keflavík airport had expanded considerably since our previous visit in 2006, and our ride into Reykjavik was enlightening. Tourism has skyrocketed since the end of the Great Recession, and it shows. Construction was everywhere. In 2016 Iceland hosted over 1.7 million visitors, and the prices in Reykjavik keep rising with the visitor count.

We registered at our hotel, the Reykjavík Marina, dropped off our luggage, and then began strolling along the inner harbor, which hosts whale watching boats, fishing boats, and the occasional coast guard cutter.

Joan and I headed towards the Harpa, Reykjavik's new (opened in 2011) cultural and social center. Click on the map to enlarge.

Along the way we encountered a guided bicycle tour,

and saw a bevy of cranes. This one looks bent only because I had to use the panorama mode of my camera to capture it all.

The Harpa is an astonishing piece of architecture.

The walls that you see are made up of hexagonal elements that echo the basalt columns common to this geologically active island.

Inside the effect is striking.

A picture from a higher floor.

Joan and I took a half-hour tour, which filled us in on some of the history of the Harpa and visited several of the performance spaces. Then we stepped outdoors and admired it from the sides we hadn't seen yet.

The fourth side.

We walked out to the end of the harbor wall.

Across the harbor, a man was mowing the hill of the Þúfa, an art installation. The hill was so steep that he was raising and lowering the  mower on a rope, or perhaps a cable.

There was time left before meeting our walking food tour guide at the Harpa, at 12:30, so Joan and I took a long walk along the shore, on a delightful paved path.

Along the way is the Solfar Sun Voyager sculpture, evoking the Viking ships.

New apartment towers are clustered on the level ground between the sea and the old town.

We returned to the Harpa and met the other four guests on the tour, and our guide. He said to call him "Thor," but it's really Þórður, or something close to that, if you can pronounce the Icelandic!

Our stops criss-crossed the old town:

• traditional Icelandic lamb stew.
• sampling 3 cheeses and 3 cured meats.
• Loki's, for a frozen dessert (rye crumbs and chocolate shavings in ice cream).
  
• skyr from Thor's backpack.
  
• the "best hot dog stand." Ordering hot dogs (made from lamb) at street stands has become an Icelandic passion. Thor told us that it's best to order "with everything," which includes mild mustard, mayo, deep fried onion, and raw onion. I got mine without the raw onion. Yum!
  
• soup of shredded rock crab and Icelandic shrimp, down in the harbor.
• At Apotek, located in an old apothecary, an apple sorbet with chocolate shavings, and a parfait with apricot juice and praline fillings.
• finally, again from Thor's backpack, milk chocolate bars made in Iceland.

Joan and I definitely did not need dinner by the time we got back to the hotel. We checked into our room, organized our stuff a bit, and then slept very hard.