Reykjavik tours, extortionate food and a peckerhead crank

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Talk about cramming a lot in and no I'm not back to David Cameron with his pig's head. No I'm talking about day two of our sojourn to Iceland and all the things we've done today. And it was cut short too which upset a peckerhead (yay I get to use the word again!) more than us but more of that anon.

The day began in the dark, well obviously, as the alarm went off at 7am. Yes Claire let me lie in till then! I think she's changed.... We'll see for sure on our next holiday though when we are somewhere that the sun rises before 11am....and there's a massive hill to clamber up beforehand....

We negotiated a bus ride more successfully than yesterday and ended up where we wanted to go, unusual I know! After a walk down a street starting with L and followed by 26 other random letters we managed to navigate our way to our first destination which was the Settlement Museum.

Our City Card entitled us to visit half of this for free so that's what we did. It was based around an ancient house they had discovered and there was lots of information about it and also the settlement of people in Reykjavik. Some of the display was interactive and pretty interesting so yeah, go.

Nest we visited the Museum of Photography which is free to get in and worth spending a bit if time in, especially if you're into photography. There are some fascinating portraits of Icelanders from the past with some quite amusing family portraits. I don't think they're supposed to be amusing but when one family member is standing apart from the rest glowering while their family are beaming from ear to ear....well it amused me.

Our jetpack tour then headed via some fantastic graffitti (there are some amazing examples here) to an industrial park. And yes we had walked the right way as this is where the Whales of Iceland exhibition was.

Reykjavik is a mish-mash of areas with hotels plonked in the middle of retail parks, museums in the middle of nowhere, restaurants away from everything; not much is in order apart from the main shopping area. Makes it more interesting though.

Anyway, back to the whales. The exhibition is rather expensive to get in but then they do have 'free' tea and coffee. And it's good coffee too, about as far from Nescafe as George Osbourne's brain is from his head. I had three cups and it came from a proper coffee machine that you could help yourself from, pouring it into a proper cup and saucer.

There were some whales too. Not real whales. Models of whales, LIFE SIZE models of whales, hence the need for an Industrial unit to house them in. Each whale had lots of information about it with some having interactive stuff to do as well. Each was suspended from the ceiling along with trails of fake seaweed to make you feel like you were under water. It didn't but at least they tried.

It was pretty interesting and the models were impressive but the icing on the cake were some 3D glasses which had films of whales running on them. I'd recommend them despite you looking a bit of a pillock when you're spinning and turning round to see something behind you. Great fun though.

After we were all whaled out it was time to go on our walking tour. We'd missed yesterday's as we'd accidentally caught a bus to nowhere so we were determined to catch it today. The 11am tour had been full so we went for the 2pm one instead. The reason we could still get on that one was because their booking site had crashed allowing anyone who tried to book with a resounding yes.

And so over 40 of us congregated outside the parliament building to be entertained by Erik for two hours while he showed us various sites of interest. His talks were funny and informative and I learnt a lot of really interesting stuff which I'm sure you would like me to tell you about. Good luck with that!

If you want to know these things either buy me a decent cup of coffee or come to Iceland yourselves. We went with City Walks and...it was free! If you thought it was good you could pay what you thought it was worth or put in as much as you wanted to or could afford. I highly recommend it as you learn a lot and it helps you to get your bearings. You even learn about the false naming of Icelandic places and streets-I still think my Scrabble bag idea is more likely.

The number of falls Erik had had on his trips went up by one as some cocky clown dismissed the clear path to walk downhill on a sheet of ice. He got what he deserved and came a cropper. Nothing injured but his pride but he at least deserved being filmed and humiliated on Youtube for being such a pillock.

The tour ended indoors in City Hall and it was nice to get out of the cold. It wasn't as windy today (incidentally Erik described yesterday's gale force winds as just a breeze....!) but the temperature had dropped a degree or two that's for sure.

After the tour it was a bit of a rush to get to the famous Solfar (sun voyager) sculpture before it was dark and we made it just in time. After taking some pictures worthy of winning any photo competition anywhere ever we headed back up onto the main street to find the cafe that serves only soup in bread houses. I'd had this in Roumania but, as there hadn't been a veggie option there, Claire was looking forward to trying it here.

They only do two dishes each day, one veggie and one not and the soups vary from time to time. The only problem was that they'd hidden the damned place. I'd got the location from Tripadvisor and marked it on my map but it must have an entrance like Platform 9 3/4s or something as we couldn't find it. So, with time running out we looked for somewhere else.

We eschewed the possibility of dining in the Chuck Norris Grill and finally found somwhere totally authentic.

If you were in Seoul.

My daughter would be proud as we had a quick but incredibly nice meal in K-Bar which serves a form of Korean cuisine. Claire had more or less a starter and an Icelandic draft beer, I had a main course and a small coke and the bill was....about....£35!! Bloody hell!

After a quick stop off in 10-11 which is the Icelandic version of a 7-11, we bussed it back to our hotel. I can understand people not bothering with anything early in the morning in the Winter months but what about in Summer when they get up to 23 hours of daylight a day?? Do they change the name of the shop?

At the hotel we got changed into our cold weather gear. Well I did as Claire has been buried under about a million layers of clothing since we got here. I can only see her eyes most of the time as she has various accessories to cover up the bits that clothes just won't cover.

As we were off to stand in the middle of nowhere in the cold for a few hours to hopefully catch the northern lights I even put my thermals on. With thermal leggings and a thermal top on I apparently look like a superhero....can there be a greater compliment than that?? I'm not sure what I would be called....maybe Thermal Man....wherever there is cold, I'll be there, wherever there is ice, I'll be there to slip and slide and wave my arms frantically...

Okay maybe not. I decided to spare others what I considered a horrific sight and put more layers over the top. Still a third of what Claire had on but I was melting even without the hat I'd been made to bring. I hate hats. I hate hoods. And I'll do my level best to avoid wearing either. But, yes Mum, I will wear one rather than die. So I put a woolly thermal hat in my bag.

And down to reception we went to wait for our northern lights tour. And there were a couple in there with the female of the species appearing thoroughly peed off and moaning at the poor receptionist. She'd done nothing all day as they were booked on a northern lights tour tonight....and it was cancelled.

Done nothing all day?? Are you nuts?? They're booked on a full day tour tomorrow but then go back the day after so have wasted a whole day doing nothing because of a trip that has a strong possibility of being cancelled. You are told this. You are told that if you see nothing or if it's cancelled you are rebooked on the next day. What's the point of going to stand in the middle of nowhere in bitter cold with nothing to see??

Peckerhead.

Yes our trip was cancelled too. And yes we're booked on a full day tour tomorrow. But we'll be back in time to do both if it's running. No biggy. And we haven't exactly wasted today now have we?

We went back to our room as we were both a bit knackered and, after a brief reappearance from Thermal Man, it was time to settle down and write this. We have a long day ahead tomorrow if the northern lights tour is running and only Thermal Man can save us now. God help us all.

I have time now to reflect a little on Reykjavik. Before we came I thought we may go away wanting to come back and I'm thinking that still. It's quite a cool, laid back place particularly for a capital city with not much traffic. The only smaller capital I've been to is Vaduz in Liechtenstein which is about as big as Audley so hardly comparable.

I want to see more of the country though and I'd like to be here when the sun hardly sets. We will see some more sights on our Golden Circle tour tomorrow but this country has a hell of a lot more to offer. Our City Card includes a ferry trip to the island of Vodey but that only runs at weekends in the Winter so we can't fit that in. Claire in particular would have liked to have seen and ridden some Icelandic horses so that will have to be done later too.

I like the fact that we have only seen two cats so far and have not had to waste hours on end waiting for Claire to fuss and photograph felines. Hopefully they won't all be out in force next time even if the weather is better! Stay in moggies!

I'm not too keen on the price of things but, with the financial crisis, it meant prices halved for tourists. More tourists are coming than ever before but wages have stayed the same for the locals so it's a bit swings and roundabouts for them. Imagine if that meal had been the equivalent of £70 which it would have been a few years ago!

So all in all a busy day in a fine city. Come now just in case exchange rates go back to what they were but, if you don't like cold, and don't even want the chance of a northern lights tour, wait until Summer. If you're a peckerhead just come and sit in your hotel all day despite the strong possibility that your evening trip might be cancelled......

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