Iceland - Day 4 🐋 🌋

This blog is brought to you by Barry.

Our final full day in Iceland began with another hotel breakfast. Sadly the waffle maker has yet to return to the buffet so I decided to liven things up by braving the pickled herring. The texture was spongy yet soft, almost like a fishy marshmallow. Flavour-wise, not as bad as I was anticipating, although the taste did seem to linger.

Fuelled by preserved fish and feeling like a true Icelander I wrapped myself up in my big coat and scarf and joined my parents and Ellie outside in the freezing weather. The temperature was around -6 although with the bright sunshine and still air it wasn’t too unpleasant. Today we were back on foot in Reykjavik and started by heading down to the path which ran alongside the sea wall. Unlike when we first arrived the conditions in the city were now beautiful and clear and we had a fantastic view across the sea to the snow-capped mountains on the other side of the bay.

We wandered along the path in the direction of the harbour, along which I indulged in some ice ‘skating’ on a large patch of frozen ice on the grass to our left. This coupled with me clambering on the sea wall rocks a few moments earlier to get a photo reminded me I must have been a nightmare to supervise as a child. Our walk took us past the Sun Voyager, a large metal sculpture shaped like the frame of a Viking ship, and the distinctive angular green glass facade of Harpa, Reykjavik’s main concert hall, both of which we paused at for the obligatory photos.

We then passed through the more industrial docks which had a series of plaques commemorating the various nautical disasters and accidents that have occurred in the tricky waters around Iceland. This was just prior to reaching the area where you could sign up for a whale watching boat cruise in said tricky waters. Not the best advertisement for a day at sea. Thankfully two of our party suffer from sea sickness so none of us were going to end up on a vessel that risked ending its journey in the briny deep.

As we moved to the other side of the harbour the area we were in almost began to resemble a series of modern warehouses, although they were in fact a series of supermarkets, shops and museums. Ellie and I were heading this way to we could visit the ‘Whales of Iceland’ museum. My parents, only really being fans of whales if they are in tanks doing tricks, stopped off at a nearby café instead. The museum itself was a large space with life-sized models of every size of whale. Having been fascinated by seeing the model of the Blue Whale at the Natural History Museum at a young age, this was a real nostalgia trip for me and we had a fantastic time staring in awe at the size of the huge creatures and learning interesting whale-based facts.

The museum didn’t sugar coat that Iceland is one of the three nations left in the world that still hunts whales, which is largely pointless as only 2% of the country consumes or uses whale products on a regular basis (it’s mainly those bloody tourists). We both felt very sorry for the whales who are still hunted in fairly brutal fashion. Well, except for the Right Whale, which the plaque described as ‘very large, very slow and full of blubber’. Practically begging for a harpooning, really.

The message regarding the plight of the whales was further pushed home by a very depressing film being shown in the theatre section of the museum. It proudly stated at the beginning that it was ‘narrated by Rachel McAdams’ but was 99% talking heads with Rachel earning her fee by delivering a line every 10 minutes or so. Also not so fetch were the frequent appearances from Sting, one of my personal nemeses who has earned my irrational hatred despite probably being a nice bloke really (also on the list of people I cannot stand to see talking or existing for any length of time: Jamie Oliver, Bono, James Corden). This, combined with the frequent references to human activity resulting in whales deliberately unaliving themselves on beaches meant we didn’t make it to the end of the film. Hopefully it climaxed with Shamu the Whale flipper-in-arm with Sting singing a song of hope for the future of human and whalekind.

Museum complete, we located my parents in a café across the street and stopped off for a quick drink. Sadly there wasn’t much in the way of food on offer so we headed over to the nearest Kronan supermarket to pick up some provisions. Our plan was to visit the Lava Show exhibit nearby but the demonstrations were every two hours and we’d just missed the start of one. Rather than hang about for a couple of hours for the 4pm show we decided to walk back to the hotel via central Reykjavik and return later via car for the 6pm show.

Our route took us most of the way back via different roads to the ones we’d travelled previously. We passed many more brightly coloured houses and buildings in the traditional Nordic style, amusing murals (my favourite being a polar bear indulging in some inter-species funky dancing with an oversized puffin) and shops selling various forms of Icelandic merchandise. Ellie was very excited by my joking suggestion that we should buy matching handmade woollen jumpers, although I had to stress it was a joke when I converted the price from Icelandic Krona to GBP and they came to £300 each!

After a short break back at the hotel we drove back down to the Lava Show which had just opened its doors as we arrived. The show was a small space with three rows of seats in front of and to the left and right of a chute which would soon be filled with molten magma. The lights soon went down and the host introduced himself as Bastian, a French volcanologist. He gave a short preamble and then played a film to the room explaining the history of volcanoes in Iceland. The summary was that volcanoes have killed a heck of a lot of people in Iceland in the past and in the future Reykjavik is probably doomed. I’m not necessarily saying that the Icelandic film industry is lacking levity but it does sound like the nominations for the ‘Best Comedy’ at their local film awards must be a fairly short list.

Thankfully our host was a fairly amiable chap and clearly had great fun as he opened the gates and let the lava cascade down the steel chute in front of us. As it began to cool he was able to stretch and manipulate the liquid rock, then shatter it when it hardened completely. We all came away feeling like we had some brand new fun facts stored in our arsenal for a later date and even the ‘questions from the audience’ section proved enlightening with some interesting queries being posed. We all agreed that it was worth a visit despite the relatively exorbitant cost. I did only slightly regret leaving Ellie unsupervised for a moment in the gift shop as when I’d returned she’d already purchased a piece of polished volcanic rock. One man’s clutter is another woman’s treasure, I guess.

After this it was a short drive up the road for our final meal out a Flatey’s, the local pizza restaurant who also have a presence in the food hall we visited on the first couple of nights. And very nice it was too.

And so ends another trip. We are flying home tomorrow morning which will probably seem tropical in heat in comparison to the last few days. But despite the cold I would recommend Iceland to anyone, the scenery is otherworldly and spectacular in equal measure and Reykjavik is a fantastic little base. And did I mention how you only have to so much look at a street you’re planning to cross and all the traffic will slow for you without fail? Give it another 10 years or so and I’ll probably even forgive them for the Euro 2016 defeat.

Until next time, over and out, amigos.