August 17 – Reykjavik

The last few days, we have been exploring Reykjavik at a leisurely pace. We’ve had a wonderful time but tonight we move on.

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay. The city is the world's northernmost capital. It has a population of around 140,000 and its surrounding suburbs include another 80,000 people.  This makes up almost 70% of the entire population of the island nation.

Reykjavík is believed to be the location of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, which, was established in the 9^th century by the Vikings. The city was officially founded in 1786 as a trading town and grew steadily, transforming itself into a national centre of commerce and governmental activities.

In May 1940, following the German occupation of Denmark and Norway, four British warships approached Reykjavík and anchored in the harbour. Within a few hours, the allied occupation of Reykjavík was complete. There was no armed resistance, and taxi and truck drivers even aided the invasion force, which initially had no motor vehicles. For the remaining years of World War II, Canadian, British and later American soldiers occupied camps in Reykjavík, and the number of foreign soldiers in Reykjavík became about the same as the local population of the city. It was the main marshalling point for convoys and was a base for submarine hunting. In 1944, while Denmark was still occupied by Germany, Iceland declared its independence.

In 1972, Reykjavík hosted the famous world chess championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Then in 1986 the Reykjavík Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev produced the agreements that led to the end of the cold war.

On our first afternoon here, we took a walk up to main shopping street and then entered Rainbow Road. I guess this multicoloured road is for the Alphabet people, but it’s filled with tourist. At the end of the road is a church with an enormous bell tower, which is visible from almost anywhere in the city. The Hallgrímskirkja’s bell tower is 75 meters in height and the church took 40 years to complete. The interior is very austere, which I originally thought reflected the Icelandic personality, except they are among the most friendly and polite people I’ve encountered.

We then went for lunch at a placed called Loki’s.  Here I had sheep stew. This was a wonderful vegetable broth with bits of lamb in it. One of the other lunches I had was dish called Plonkari. This turned out to be fish chowder, just a bit saltier. Marg has had several dishes of fish and chips over the past several days because the cod is so tasty.

The lady at front desk told us that we could see a Viking ship along the shoreline down from the hotel. What she didn’t tell us was this a piece of modern art. What a letdown.

We took the Hop-On Hop-Off bus and visited two museums. One was fantastic and the other a total waste of time. We went to the “Whales of Iceland” museum and were very impressed. The exhibit had life size models of whales that can be found in Icelandic waters. Really makes you feel insignificant as you stand underneath these behemoths. We also got to view an interesting documentary on whales from David Attenborough.

We then went to the Maritime Museum, where thought we could view Viking ships. No such luck, as it was a museum devote to the fishing industry. Boring!

As I’ve already written about, on the 15^th we visited the Prelan National History Museum. Maybe next to the whales, it was my favourite site.

Reykjavik is a very expensive city. A simple lunch for two can cost up to sixty dollars or more. Wine and beer can set you back twenty dollars. Gas goes for three dollars a litre.

You will hear way more English spoken in stores and restaurants than Icelandic. That could be explained by the huge number of tourists, like ourselves, arriving or leaving on the cruise ships.

The weather has been very cold and damp. The warmest temperature was thirteen degrees, and it has rained every day, except yesterday. I guess that is what summer is like in the Artic or at least that is what our taxi drivers have told us.