Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Iceland Day 1: Keflavik and Reykjavik

Everyone flying to Iceland flies to Keflavik.  It is (I believe) an old NATO base that was converted to a civilian airport.  It is approximately 41 km south of Reykjavik.

It is even more amazing when you arrive there in the dark at 0445.



Driving North is a pretty dreary thing.  Grey, you can see the ocean, and rocks.  Lots of rocks:



And then, you come upon the Blue Lagoon:


The Blue Lagoon, interestingly enough, is actually manmade, a run off pond for a geothermal plant.  People starting soaking here in the 1990s and were reputed to have relief from certain skin conditions.  Now, it is a swanky resort.




We stayed in an Air BNB at Hafnarforður, a subub of Reykjavik. On clear days, apparently you can see across the bay to a glacier.




Reykjavik is the capital (and main city) of Iceland - but surprisingly for a museum buff, there were not a whole lot of museums.  The downtown is cute and old (and therefore, no pictures as it is just buildings. One place we did go is Hallgrimskirkja:



It was started in 1945 and completed in 1986 and is 244 feet high at the highest point:



You can go up in the tower.  The views are quite spectacular:







In front of the Cathedral is a statue of Leif Erikson (Leif the Lucky), a gift from the US to Iceland on the anniversary of the 1000th anniversary of the Althing, the Icelandic parliament:  



8 comments:

  1. What were air fares like TB?

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  2. Glen, we went via WOW air. We paid about $450 a ticket round trip - which for four of us included two carry-ons, 1 checked bag, and reserved seats. It is a pay as you go airline, but was no worse than Southwest.

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  3. So that space shuttle looking building is a cathedral? That's some organ!

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  4. It is, Leigh. I believe completely out of concrete. And yes, the organ was as amazing as I have seen - I would have loved to hear it!

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  5. No pictures just because they were only buildings? They might have been as neat as all your other pictures. :-)

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  6. Linda, I am not much of a modern architecture guy, and most of the things we saw on day one were. I did take some on day six, which I will post.

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  7. I like looking simply because other countries build so much differently than we do. :)

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  8. Ah. I should have taken pictures of where we stayed. In general, the "regular" housing structures remind me a lot of Norway: angular, sealed up for warmth.

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