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Published: June 29th 2017
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Geo: 65.6839, -18.1105
Is what they call Akureyri. Its not hard to see why. We woke tired in the morning, and headed up to deck 11 for breakfast at the Windjammer. At first glance outside all hunger and fatigue was instantly replaced with excitement. We headed straight on deck to soak in the beautiful scenery. Whitecap mountains all around a beautiful still bay. Sunshine illuminating a pretty town. It was an inspired sight. We then went for breakfast, disembarking around 11. No tour was booked today. Our plan rather, was to explore the relatively small town on foot, and seek out Puffin penguins. We had been advised they were common here. Whilst this turned out to be a lie, exploring the city was fun. Our first stop was the 1940s hilltop church looking over the town. It closely resembled the Reykjavik church, but much younger, just a copy. Akureyri is actually a relatively new town, and as late as the 1890s had a population of under 100 people. Today is around 14,000. From the church we continued on to the worlds most Northern Botanical gardens. Ok, it wasnt spectacular, but after Reykjavik it was nice to walk through lush green gardens, in
sunshine, in 21C with clear beautiful scenery.With limited time, we figured a good way to cover ground would be to jump on some public buses. Public transport in Iceland is free for all. We got on two different b6s loops, one 15 minutes, one 40 minutes which offered good views. We spent the rest of our time, and Icelandic Krone in a backpackers wifi bar for lunch. Id hoped to upload some blogs and photos, but the connection was too slow and we gave up. So time to reboard the boat. We lay on deck in the sun, with an ice cream until the cruise departed, enjoying beautiful sights as we left port.The next day was spent at sea. We slept in and had a buffet breakfast around 11. For the third time, we engaged in Scrabble combat. Nat as always, grumpy not to win 😉We decided to shell out $5 cover charge each for Johnny Rockets burger cafe for lunch around 1.30, a 60s themed diner. This was delicious, but heavy going, making it hard to stumble to a football tournament thereafter at 3.30. I managed to help my team to the final in a round robin, scoring 2
of our 3 goals. We fell short, basically as we were the only team with a girl. Sorry its true. By the time our formal dinner came around at 8 I wasnt remotely hungry and barely fit into my suit pants. Nat looked amazing in her new black dress and Icelandic earrings. We went wine free again. Dinner was again good, but has dropped off a bit since the start.We decided to give the rock and roll theatre show a go thereafter. Sadly, it was absolutely terrible. Neither of us enjoyed a single song, and at the end, slipped out as the cruise director further defiled our ears with terrible humour. We sat about elsewhere, in a lounge as a pianist washed the filth from our eardrums with some chilled tunes from the Eagles and Billy Joel.Its late now, and tomorrow we are in Norway! Trondheim is our first stop, about the only without an organized tour. We aim to explore the town and maybe find Bymarka forest. Looking forward to it!
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What a difference! One day your rugged up and now your wearing t-shirts!