On Saturday morning, we had a lovely breakfast in the hotel. Centerhotel Thingholt had the best breakfast of all the hotels we stayed at in Iceland. Typical Scandinavian fare — cold cuts, cheeses, and breads, plus cereals, pastries, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon. Yum!
After breakfast, we headed out for a little sight-seeing. We went to Reykjavik 871 +-2 first. It’s a small interesting museum built upon the remains of a Viking-age farmhouse ruin. There are several interactive displays, which accounts for the fact that we spent too much time there.
After the museum, we decided to wander the streets and head back toward the center of town.
There were lots of interesting sights and we walked past Lake Tjornin. It was a misty, drizzly day, with intermittent sunshine and people were out feeding the ducks. As we wandered through the streets, we admired the many buildings. It’s so interesting that many of them are sided with a type of corrugated metal.
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Hello little kitty. Reykjavik has a thing for cats and we did, indeed, see several of them.
Eventually, we found our way to Hallgrimskirkja. This is the largest church in Iceland and the tallest building in Reykjavik. In front of the church is a statue of Leif Ericson. We spent quite a bit of time at the church, taking pictures and having fun. Inside is a very pretty organ.
We bought tickets and went up inside the bell tower. When you exit the elevator, you’re in a square room that has the back of a clock on each wall. You can look out of the windows at the bottom of each clock and view the city below. There is a staircase in the middle of the room and if you take the stairs, you end up in an enclosed, outdoor observation deck. Brrrr, it was freezing out there, but well worth it for the view.
And, as we walked away from the church, we had a yarn-bomb sighting.
We walked down Skolavordustigur street and popped into a few shops. In the little grocery store, I noticed coke bottles with different words on them. I heard later that Coca-Cola in Europe has a summer campaign going on and they print different names on the coke bottles. The fun is in finding your name. I don’t know if those are Icelandic names, but maybe that explains the different words on the bottles. Reykjavik is so interesting and colorful.
One of the shops that we popped into was The Handknitting Association of Iceland. It’s a great shop stuffed full of Icelandic sweaters and other hand-knit items at prices that appeared to be better than in other shops.
We eventually ended up back on Laugavegur street and we visited several shops that had been closed the previous night. I ended up in the Iceland Icewear store to buy a rain jacket and pants, as I’d forgotten to bring my coat from the U.S. Wearing several layers of clothing under the rain jacket was very comfortable — I discovered that protection from the wind is more important than from the cold. Boy, is Iceland windy!
We had a fairly late dinner at Kaffi Solon which was just around the corner from our hotel. The food was delicious, but we had a waiter with an attitude. Everyone we met in Iceland was so nice — this guy was our only bad experience. People who were seated after us finished their meals before we were even served. The waiter made no apologies. Other than the waiter though, this place is highly recommended.
After dinner, we took a drive out to the point on the harbor where there was a pretty little lighthouse.
It was a perfect end to our day!