Day 7: Flea market and National Museum

Overview. We spent Saturday in Reykjavik, starting with the trip to Kolaportid, Reykjavik's large indoor flea market located smack in the middle of Old Town, on the waterfront. After that, the three of us (the older kid excluded) visited the National Museum of Iceland.  A somewhat ill-advised attempt to go to Taco Bell (heh) followed. The end result was the biggest cooked dinner at our place. In the evening, Olga and I made an ice cream run downtown.

Weather. Reykjavik keeps being cool (15 degrees Celcius) and less friendly than other places, although the skies did get a bit better closer to the end of the day. But as one can see from the picture above, most of the day, the skies were uniformly and unappealingly grey.

Very picturesque houses on the embankment of  Lake Tjomin, but the  skies are leaden.

Flea market.  We woke up pretty late, giving ourselves time to sleep, have breakfast and prepare, and were parking in the Old Town around 11:50am.  We then walked to the flea market (about a five min walk from where I parked the car) and spent about an hour walking around it. Well, it's a flea market.

Antique stalls at Kolaporthid.

 With stalls selling old stuff, stalls selling books and records, stalls selling t-shirts, stalls selling woolen clothing, stalls selling... pretty much everything.  We got a set of pins, a set of stamps, and a set of old coins, but otherwise, it was not as fruitful of a trip as we hoped. Prices were rather high, so it made little sense to spend money at a flea market when new things cost about as much.

Kolaporthid.

Hakarl.  On the other hand, one "big" thing did happen - we all collectively tried the infamous hakarli, a.k.a., the rotten (fermented) shark.  A corner of the market is occupied by food vendors. One vendor had samples of all their wares - dried fish (multiple different excellent choices!), candy (yum), and hakarl.  So, I, Olga and the older kid tried it to varying degrees of success.  I had no problem with the small cube of shark flesh.  The older kid tried it and went "ugh".  Olga made two attempts but the smell of hakarl eventually turned her off.  But, we tried it! Yay!  No pictures unfortunately, although I should've taken some.

But, speaking of food, here is how a restaurant advertises itself.

National Museum of Iceland. Following the Flea Market visit, we spent some time walking around downtown looking for coffee.

A laundromat/cafe combo in Old Town knows what it is doing.

 Once coffee was procured in a small creperie right in the center, the older one split from us and went record store hopping, while the three of us walked around the Lake Tjomin to reach the National Museum of Iceland. Where we spent the next two hours looking through two floors of exhibits at our own respective paces. I am the slowest one in the family, so by the time I got out, it was  5pm. 

The National Museum of Iceland.

The museum contains a rich collection of artifacts from the Settlement and Commonwealth days of Iceland. 

National Museum of Iceland: a fidget spinner broche?

National Museum of Iceland: this is 900-year old skyr.

National Museum of Iceland: Thor's Hammer.

This dwindles to religious objects by the time we reach Reformation, but becomes more diverse closer to the 1700s. 

National Museum of Iceland: a hoard of silver coins.

The most curious item in the National Museum of Iceland: a calendar that no one understands how to operate.

National Museum of  History. Icelanders were going for the big fish.

The museum is not large, but is reasonably well organized, and translates everything into English, which makes it possible to follow the flow of the narrative. I took pictures of some of the more impressive items in the collection - some quite unique.

National Museum of Iceland: chess pieces.

National Museum of Iceland.  Settlement-era grave goods: a complete set for a game no one knows how to play.

Taco Bell? It was just past 5pm when we walked out of the museum and 20 minutes later we reconnected with the older kid on Ingolfur Square.

Reykjavik cityscape across Lake Tjomin.

 We walked to the car and attempted to drive to Taco Bell/KFC combo we noticed on our day 1 on the way to Reykjavik from the airport. This was somewhat of an ill-fated attempt, as KFC/Taco Bells in Iceland do not work Saturdays and Sundays... I have no rational explanation for this - all other fast food places seemed to be open... My only guess is this: US fast food chains are underrepresented in Iceland - I am willing to bet due to government being protectionist of locally-owned fast food chains. The "closed on the weekends" rule may have been the condition upon which KFC and Taco Bell were allowed into the country.

Evening. After the failure with Taco Bell, we stopped by Bonus, bought some food, headed home and cooked some cutlets and potatoes, having the biggest home-cooked dinner of our stay here to-date.  In the evening, Olga and I drove downtown in order to do some souvenir-shopping, and getting ice cream at Valdis...  Came home around 11, watched Netflix....

Driving. Around 50 km around town.

Steps.  12,318 steps according to Google Fit. 

Plans for Day 8.  Trip to south of Iceland up to Vik and back, with some sightseeing along the way.