Reykjavik

Simple day of sightseeing in the “big smoke”, such as it is here.

The Cathedral (see feature photo) is much nicer, in my opinion, than the one by the same architect in Akurery. The top was visible at the top of the street our apartment was on, so we just walked straight up to it. A couple of blocks short we came across a local coffee roaster bar, where we had some excellent mid-morning coffees. Proper hipster baristers, too. Must have arrived just in time, because we snagged a table for four, but soon after there was a queue four deep out the door.

The cathedral has a great, heroic statue of Leifer Ericson out the front, a gift from America on Iceland’s one thousandth birthday, in 1930.

It also has a great (big, modern) pipe organ inside, and as our incredible holiday luck was holding, we walked in on the end of an organ recital. The sound was glorious: Dad bought the CD from the gift shop afterwards.

Some touristic shopping followed, and at least Mum seems to have found all of the things that she was looking for.

Then we walked down to the waterfront to see the opera house, which is an architectural marvel, echoing the forms of columnar bassalt and ice in glass walls, and roof. We had planned to have lunch at the cafe there, but it was only serving coffee and cakes and the restaurant on the fourth floor was closed, so no luck. Google pointed us towards a nearby lobster specialist restaurant, which was very nice, in a quaint old-fashioned way. The lobster soup seemed to be the pick of the dishes.

Back to the apartment for a rest, photo backup and thinking about packing for tomorrows early exit. Alarm is set for five AM, and even that will probably be a bit of a rush. So off to bed for me now!