A Tale Of Two Cities

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I got out of the airport and wondered over to the Flybus ticket counter, they asked me what hotel I was staying in and I showed them my reservation for the only hostel in Reykjavik. I waited with everybody else as the bus pulled up and wondered what delights this little capital city had in store for me in the 2 days I would be saying here.

The journey to the youth hostel would take about an hour; I fell asleep and was rudely woken up. I thought that I had already been asleep for an hour but I looked out of the window to find that we were at a bus station and everybody was being told to leave the bus, being divided into smaller buses dependant on where there accommodation was. Nobody wanted to take me to start with; I was being shifted right to left, bus to bus, showing the bus drivers my reservation and getting a shrug of the shoulders from most. Eventually it was decided what bus I should travel in and I took my seat against the window taking in some stunning views.

I was the last to be dropped off at Reykjavik City Hostel; I checked in and threw my bags on the bed. It wasn’t long before I wanted to get out and start exploring, so I grabbed a map from the front desk and was out. The hostels biggest drawback was that it was a long way to the centre of town; 3km I believe the lady on the front desk told me, better start walking!

I walked along the sea front and I came across a house sitting there in the middle of the road, I wondered up and investigated what it was; I couldn’t seem to find any mention of it in my guidebook, I walked round and found a plaque stating that it was called Hofoi House and it was where Gorbachev met Ronald Regan in 1986; I took a few pictures and moved on, wanting to get into the city centre and start exploring

The main thing in Reykjavik is art galleries and museums; there seems to be millions of them! I’m not really a museum or art galley kind of guy but my first port of call was the Vikin Maritime Museum, this actually was pretty cool. It was all about Iceland’s seafaring heritage, had loads of models of restore fishing vessels from the past and talked about how they would be out on the seas for months at a time, there was also a silent film which showed some trawler crews in action, the main problem was that most of the information was in Icelandic. I wondered about going into a couple more museums not really overly interested and then came across a little lake which had what seems to be thousands of geese, swans, ducks and gulls. I sat down and tried to eat my sandwich I had brought on the way into town, to my displeasure I got attacked by these birds who also wanted some of my sandwich! They also wanted my camera as I tried to take a timed picture of myself by the lake; they either knocked it over or got in the way of it, bloody birds! I took a walk round the park located on the south shore of Tjornin, which translates into The Pond I found out later on, the park was pleasant enough with little sculptures, flowers and pavilions.

Next I walked about half an hour to find Hallgrimskirkja, this church is the most striking building in the whole of Reykjavik, you can see it from up to 20km away, according to the plaque outside it. Though it must be said that by the time I got up the hill I was absolutely knackered as it located up on one of the highest hills I have ever had to climb! The church on the outside is very showy, I walked inside to find that the interior was actually rather plain; unadorned white walls and narrow, towering windows. The most startling feature inside is the organ; vast clusters of pipe stick out. I walked over to investigate further and there was a note saying that there was 5275 pipes. I took the lift up to the tower and then some more stairs to the viewing towers, what greeted me was an absolutely unbelievable view of the whole of Reykjavik. I felt like I was a god looking down at its city.

I left the church, feeling my feet hurt looking a lots of stuff I cant write about here, having brought my swimming short with me I decided to take a walk down to the geothermal swimming pool at Laugardalslaug. It was great, after showing down I took the decision to do a few lengths of the Olympic sized outdoor swimming pool (before you start thinking im crazy, an outdoor swimming pool in Reykjavik in September! It was a constant 29C; very comfortable), after that I relaxed in one of the seven Jacuzzis and finished off by pissing around on the 86m water slide. I could have stayed there all afternoon but was meeting my friend Janne who was going to take me on a runtur or as me and you know it a pub crawl

I got back to my hostel and doing my homework, pulled out a bottle of vodka, knowing that Reykjavik is one of the most expensive places in the world. Janne came round to the hostel and we shared the litre of vodka and set on out ……

25th Feb

Woke up with a cracking hangover and tried to have a shower; I say tried cause I had to run to the toilet to throw up as the water smells of rotten eggs or sulphur, that really didn’t help my hangover! The night was crazy half wasted before we started the pub crawl we went to a number of bars and pubs; some bars were smaller, very artsy affairs and if they had dancefloors they are the size of a postage stamp and some were larger clubber venues. Have no idea how much of a whole was blown out of my wallet last night …

Got back to the hostel, still trying to recover from the hangover, I made it just back in time for the coach for the tour I booked before leaving the UK. It’s called the Golden Circle and includes 3 natural sites; the waterfalls at Gulfoss, Pingvellir National Park and the Geysir and Strokkur hot springs.

I fell asleep, leaning on the window, being woken up by the brakes being applied. First of all we got out at Pingvellir National Park, this is where the Vikings established the first ever democratic parliament in AD930 according to the guide. He continued to go on about how it was on the edge of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates and was made a UNESCO world heritage site in 2004. The scenery here was absolutely unbelievable, all around as far as the eye could see. It was also unbelievably cold; I was wearing 2 jumping and I was still cold!!!

We pilled back onto the coach and was taken to the next of the 3 wonders of Iceland. Gulfoss waterfall. Gulfoss in English means Golden Falls and is actually a 32m double waterfall. We climbed up the steps, then round, finally reaching the top by climbing up some rocks. The views looking down at the waterfall were stunning and it was so cold that the grass at the side of the waterfall was freezing when the water landed on it; it was that cold. After about 30 minutes taking pictures and admiring the scenery we walked up to a little restaurant and tourist shop, where we stopped for about an hour, it was just nice to get a warm cup of tea down my neck; it was unbearably cold out there!

The final stop was to the hot springs. These were really impressive; there were 2 of them; Geysir (Gusher) and Strokkur (Butter Churn). I was talking to guide and he was telling me that Geysir, the first one we saw only erupts 2 to 4 times daily and we would have to be quite lucky to see it erupt whilst Strokkur, alongside, is a lot more active erupting nearly every seven to eight minutes. We stood round Geysir and waited to see it explode; it didn’t, I felt a bit cheated, I mean I had come all this way and I hadn’t seen it … We moved on to Strokkur and it didn’t take ever long for it to explode, then behind me I heard what sound like an explosion .. I turned around to see Geysir returning to earth, I was even more disappointed … It was still really cool to see one erupt.

We got back onto the coach and the driver drove back into Reykjavik and dropped everybody off at their hotel or hostel. I returned to find a note under the door of my dorm; I made my way down to the front desk to find a ticket waiting for me to Paris on Icelandair; Janne's dad is a captain and had got me a cheap ticket to Paris ….

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Photos

Hallgrimskirkja Church
The god like view from the Tower

Geysir
Bubbling; getting ready!