With pretty much every day of my trip filled with tours and/or travel, my spare time was somewhat limited, and I attempted to spend it in Reykjavik city centre as much as I could. Anyone who knows me well knows I am not into night life, so that left a couple afternoons and early evenings when tours were finished for the day. If I had a few extra days to explore, I may have ventured inside some of the places I snapped pictures of from the outside, and I for sure would have visited more coffee shops and pubs. Good ol’ tried and true Subway did receive some additional business from me to help keep food cost down somewhat, but maybe I should have just splurged for those couple days!
One street I spent a fair amount of time on was Laugavegur, which I gathered to be a tourist strip due to the amount of souvenir shops on it, so many that shops with the same name could even be found at one end and the other and half way between! I went into all of them I’m sure, but after the first three or four shops, they really ended up being all the same, maybe a couple had the odd different thing which is I guess why I went into them all!
In the pictures below, the highway shots with the tall cranes in the background…. Those cranes were all around my hotel, there was so much construction all over the place, a lot like cities I know close to home! It was a 30 minute walk from my hotel to the city centre which I did do a few times, icy sidewalks and all. The area around the hotel was the worst for ice on the sidewalks, closer to the city centre was much better. Some of the sidewalks in the city were bare and dry, apparently because they are heated underneath!
I saw more than a few Te & Kaffi locations, which I think may be Iceland’s big coffee chain. Sadly, I did not get to try it out even once! I guess it just wasn’t in my immediate line of travel whenever I needed a coffee. Not that I went to many places for coffee in my spare time, but I feel that I really should have checked this place out, sigh! I also saw a burger joint with some interesting advertising, a pub with a cute little pig out front, and gas prices anyone? I believe that 220.5 is roughly $2.44 per… litre? I’m guessing so, since everything is metric there.
I managed to find time to do a free (by donation) city walking tour of Reykjavik offered by a company called CityWalk and facilitated by a local historian.
So onto political stuff, the darker building below is Parliament House. It’s a bit hard to see but the 2 upper windows on left and right sides display a creature above them, a dragon, an eagle, a giant, and a bull, which are on Iceland’s coat of arms and represent protection. For statues we have 1.) Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason, the first woman to become a member of parliament in Iceland; 2.) Jón Sigurðsson, the leader of the 19th century Iceland independence movement (they used to be part of Denmark!) 3.) Ingólfur Arnarson, the “First Viking” to settle in Iceland.
The white building is a junior college, which sounds similar to a Canadian high school as far as age group, except it is optional to attend. Apparently almost everyone in Iceland chooses to attend though and can then go on to university for which there are no tuition fees. The university offers education in geology and geothermal sciences.
And this mostly plain looking building below is the Prime Minister’s office. My walking group was advised to note the lack of security and flag. Not much need for security in Iceland I guess, with it being one of the safest places in the world. Apparently the most heavily armed and secure building in Iceland is the U.S. Embassy, and I don’t think that surprises anyone!
This fish-scaled building below is the Harpa concert hall. Each ‘scale’ is near a cubicle and can be light controlled, able to make words and pictures out of light when required. Yes that is a geothermal pool outside the building.
More ducks!!! And swans!! And another thawed area of water amongst the frozen ground. Except this time the frozen part isn’t ground, it’s Tjörnin Lake, which is behind the Parliament House and City Hall. I could have gotten a lot more pictures of humans walking on the lake but I guess I prefer birds, I can’t get enough of them!! I am told the thawed area was created and geothermally heated purposely for the birds.
The last picture is the pigeons all lined up on top of City Hall, waiting for something, some poor unsuspecting victim walking too close under them maybe…
A couple more touristy landmarks, the infamous church, the one that’s on all the Iceland souvenirs, the largest church in Iceland and one of the tallest structures in the country. I don’t know what the tallest is, Google it! Anyway, this is the Hallgrímskirkja. Also got a shot of the Reykjavik Art Museum which to me looks kind of like a prison…? And the Icelandic Phallological Museum, a museum of male anatomy… FUN!!! No I did not go in, wasn’t really UP to it….
Check out my posts regarding the bars I visited, Micro Bar and the Lebowski Bar. YES they are worthy of their own posts!!!
