We tried to sleep in but we were awakened by the garbage truck…ggrrr.
We packed our luggage and loaded up the car, we had to be out of the apartment
by 11am. We walked the city a bit and picked up more souvenirs, we went back to
Braud & Co. for a cinnamon roll (GET ONE!) and then it was time to go. Even
though Reykjavik is a relatively safe city I was really nervous about leaving
our luggage exposed in the car; because of this we didn’t linger in the city
for too long. And in my haste to leave and get back to our car filled with
luggage I forgot to go into Hallgrimskirkja to get pictures and climb to the
top. Next time!
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| Reykjavik Street Art |
We headed to the Perlan Museum to see what that was about. It was an
interesting museum where you would get the geological background of Iceland,
learn about glaciers (and even walk into a man made one! If you pay the extra
fee). You can also pay extra to walk around the top and get a bird’s eye view
of Reykjavik. As much as I wanted to get good pictures it was rainy, and I
really didn’t want to pay extra to stand in the rain. One of their exhibits was under construction
and in general I found it hard to get around the museum. Maybe that was due to
the construction on the new exhibit.
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| Top Right: Walking in a glacier at the Perlan; Others: Viking World |
We left Reykjavik around lunch
time and headed to The Bridge between Continents, part of the Reykjanes Geopark.
On our way over we saw some of the air and nautical teams of the NATO activity
taking place on the island, that was pretty cool. Back to the geopark, the
geopark is the only place in the world where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is visible
above sea level. The bridge is built over the North American Plate and the
Eurasian Plate; and the plates are pulling away from each other at a rate of
about 0.8 inches per year. When you visit the bridge, you are also able to walk
in between the two plates! So, this leads me to a very important question, when
you’re between the two plates, where are you?!
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| The Bridge between Continents |
After the geopark we headed to Viking World Museum. The museum’
building is gorgeous from an architectural standpoint, but I was bit
disappointed with what was on display. The only thing they have in the museum
is a replica of a Viking ship that sailed the same path as past Vikings did,
but they did it in the 90’s. I thought this would be a good place to waste some
time before our flight, but we were only there for 30 minutes. Then we headed
to grab some lunch before we headed to the airport.
Once at the airport we returned our car and walked to the terminal. We
arrived a little over 4hrs before our flight in hopes of upgrading to WOW’s
premium seats because you are unable to do this over the phone. But WOW only
has employees at the departure desk 3 hours before takeoff. So, we waited.
Turns out, someone snatched the last remaining premium seats, so we were stuck
with our XXL seats. We walked around the airport a bit, did some last minute
shopping and then headed to our gate and waited some more. Finally, it was time
to board and head home!
Overall, I really enjoyed the trip and do want to go back. Iceland is a
place you’ll want to see in all its different seasons. I would like to go back
during the summer and do the ring road (covering the whole island) and in the
dead of winter (just to experience it). If we had added a few more days to our
trip I think it would have satisfied me. Its a beautiful and unique country, we saw more vivid rainbows to last a lifetime! And SO many waterfalls!
