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.

Day 6: Back to Reykjavik

Overview.  Spent most of the day driving from Akureyri back to Reykjavik. We spent some time along the way climbing the Grabrok crater and visiting nearby Glanni Falls, and we stopped for lunch at the gas station at Borganes, but that was pretty much it. In the evening, kids stayed at home, while Olga and I trekked to the Grotta Island Lighthouse at the very tip of Reykjavik's peninsula, and spent some time there.

Leaving Akureyri.

Weather. Akureyri met us with cool morning and a low hanging mist. About 20 km inland the mist disappeared and the rest of the way to Reykjavik was sunny. The temperature was between 15 and 19 degrees Celcius, with 17 degrees being the most common along the way and in Reykjavik. Good weather overall, except for the very beginning of the trip.

The mist outside of Akureyri.

Heading south. Woke up, had breakfast, packed the bags, checked out of the house, got gas, stopped by the same bakery as the day before to get coffee and some baked goods, and drove south. Had some unforeseen delays, but eventually made it to Grabrok.

The mists are disappearing  as we go inland.

Grabrok Crater. I wanted to find something to do along the way to Reykjavik but recognizing that it a long drive, the kids are tired, and we won't be doing touristy things the entire day.  I found Grabrok Crater - which is conveniently situated right by Route 1.

Grabrok Crater from Glanni Falls parking lot. And yep, that is the correct horizon line.

 I remembered driving past it on the way north and wondering what it was... Well, wonder no more.

A panorama of the inside of Grabrok Crater.

It is one of three volcanic craters (two are still standing, one has disappeared "due to mining operations"). There is a parking lot right off route 1, and a short, but steep, although well-established climb to the top of the crater, and a path along its rim.

Grabrok Crater and the vicinity.

 The crater itself is quite dry, but there are some really nice views in various directions.  We spent about 40-50 minutes climbing, hiking along the rim, and returning back.

Panorama with Grabrokafell Crater as seen from the top of Grabrok Crater.

Grabrokafell: the other crater in the system.

Glanni Falls. The shortest sightseeing detour we had....  Basically, needed a bathroom break, and the visitor center - about a mile south of Grabrok Crater parking lot advertised a cafe. It turned out to be a golf club, but it did have the facilities, although I had to part with two bucks to use them. In an act of civil disobedience (free the loo!), I let other tourists use the facilities without "suggested donation". We then walked to the falls themselves. The Glanni waterfall is pretty, but after all the falls we saw up north - hardly as impressive. Took some pictures, went back to the car.

Glanni Falls in all their glory.

Borganes. Stopped there for lunch. The tourist web sites advertised the Ljomalind farmer's market as something really cool. Nope. Just a store.  After that we paid a visit to a nearby liquor store - our first trip to such a store in Iceland. Bought some beer and cider.  Then, crossed the street to Grill 66, which is a fast food eatery inside Olis - one of the gas station chains in Iceland. Had burgers.  Drove down Borganes penninsula, but nothing in the tourist part of town (except for the church that impressively was perched on top of a cliff) struck a chord with us, so we turned around and headed home.

In Reykjavik. Kids just wanted to be left alone - right on the mark - our usual observation is that they require half-a-day of recharging at home for every three days of activities, and a full day - for every non-stop week of activities.  We looked at our step counts and decided that 7pm is too early  stay home. I looked up places to go, decided to see what the end of the world looks like in Reykjavik... Turns out, it's a lighthouse on an island.

Grotto Island Lighthouse at high tide.

We drove there. Lighthouse is not accessible - we were the at high tide, and the pathway was under the water.

Grotto Island:  almost the westernmost part of Reykjavik.

 Instead, we walked along the beach, passed by the infamous Kivka foot bath (on the way out, some kids were bathing there, on the way back a couple decided to submerge entirely.... this is why we cannot have nice things), and went all the way up to the point where the single-occupancy houses gave way for apartment/condo complexes, and then went back. Took some pictures of Reykjavik skyline.

Reykjavik skyline.

We then drove to the old town, parked on the same secret street as on our first day, walked to Ingolfur square, had some drinks in a bar. Then, went back to the car, stopped by 24-hour Netto to get potatoes, and headed home.

Viking-themed restaurant on Ingolfur Square.

Driving.  Around 490 km. Will post the exact odometer reading later.

Walking.  11,959 steps according to Google Fit, most of them in Reykjavik.

Day 7 plans. Flea market visit in Reykjavik, and then  - we'll see.

Day 5. Diamond Circle

Overview. After a significant amount of doubt related to the amount of driving on gravel roads, we nevertheless were able to turn  the Diamond Circle visit  into an actual circle, visiting Godafoss, flying through Husavik, hiking Asbyrgi crater, viewing Dettifoss and Selfoss, and seeing - and smelling - the Hverir  area next to Myvatn.  Unfortunately, the latter was the only stop we made in the Myvatn region, although we did drive around the lake a bit.  A busy day that could have been even busier.

Weather. Continues to be our friend. 17 to 22 degrees Celcius all day. Except for Dettifoss, where the river and the waterfall creates a significantly colder, windier and wetter weather, I was comfortable in a t-shirt pretty much everywhere.

Akureyri tunnel.  Morning started with doubt, or perhas outright panic. The night  before I started finalizing the Diamond Circle itinerary, and it occurred to me by looking at the maps that the path I chose, and an alternative route involved driving around 30-35 kilometers on gravel roads. This is something I really wanted to avoid, based on our prior experiences with gravel roads in various parts of Iceland. But this meant (a) not visiting Dettifoss/Selfoss, and (b) having to double-back from Asbyrgi to Myvatn area through Husavik, and losing two hours to driving in the process.  We searched for options - staying an extra day, and doing a separate trip to Myvatn, double-backing, excluding things from itinarary... At the end, we decided to get to Asbyrgi, and then improvise.  

We set off around 9am, but had to stop for gas in town, and this turned into stopping for bread at a local bakery. I'll just say that they make excellent bread.  We then headed out of Akureyri, with a quick stop on the other side of the fjord at a vista point to take some pictures of the town from across the water. It was a correct decision - on the way back the sun was smack about Akureyri, and it would have rendered impossible to get any good shots. This way, I got to shoot some nice panoramas.

Akureyri in the summer.

Immediately after, we got routed to go through Akureyri tunnel. This requires paying a 1500 krona toll - the most expensive toll we've ever paid to travel. Except.... all signs discussing the payment are in Icelandic (as opposed to a lot of road signs almost everywhere in both Icelandic and English), and there is no toll booth or any other means of collecting the toll physically. Instead, withing three hours of passing the tunnel, one has to visit this website and pay the toll on-line, lest, a 1000 krona penalty is added to a bill that is mailed to the driver (owner) of the car.  If you know ahead of time, it is easy to pre-register the car, etc..., but if you don't, things get iffy - especially since cell reception is crap on Route 1 past the tunnel for quite a few kilometers.

While I was driving to Godafoss, Olga figured it all out, but failed to load the payment page. Upon arrival to Godafoss, I spent 10 minutes doing the same on my phone and eventually was successful in registering the car with the tunnel authority, and paying the toll. Argh... Lots of time spent on this trivial matter, and a lot of words.

Godafoss. I decided to stop by Godafoss, although it is not on the shortest route to Akureyri (but a few kilometers). In hindsight, it was a correct decision - both because we otherwise would not have visited it, and because it would not have been as impressive after Dettifoss and Selfoss.

Panorama of Godafoss.

 As it is, though, we parked, walked to the  various vista points along the way and took requisite pictures. Godafoss is a nice Niagara-style waterfall - with quite a bit of power, but not too much height. 

Best view of Godafoss.

The smaller Gettifoss is just downriver from Godafoss - but it is not as impressive.

Gettifoss: just down the road.

Overall, not a bad start of the day - we were on our way towards Husavik before 10am - much better than we did the day earlier.

The uncropped "I was there" picture with a rainbow.

Husavik. We pretty much zoomed through Husavik. That is,  we stopped at Netto, a grocery store, to let kids choose some food and drinks for themselves for the day. Surprisingly, we were quite efficient, getting in and out of the store in about 20 minutes. I then walked across the road to the bayside, and took some pictures of the bay, the fjord, and Husavik.

Husavik: the Morro Bay of Iceland.

That was it.

Sweep panorama of Husavik and the surrounding area.

Asbyrgi. We then sped up towards Asbyrgi following the curve along the north coast, and at some point hitting the northen-most point of our trip. For about 20 km or so, we had a police car in front of us - which was an excellent pacer, but closer to Asbyrgi, the car turned on the lights and stopped. Passing it by carefully (I was not sure why he turned the lights on) I saw the cop talking on the phone, so, relieved, we overtook the police car, and never saw it again.

Asbyrgi is a curious tongue-shaped canyon about 4 km long.

Asbyrgi from the top of the rim.

 We got a map at the visitor center, discussed the trails, and went up the east side of the canyon, after initially missing the appropriate trailhead. The trail goes along the rim of the canyon - which gradually increases in height, and seems to go all the way around the canyon. The rim of the canyon is covered in arctic birch (looks like Karelian birch to me, but I am certain Icelanders used a different name for it), and blueberries. The latter were not quite ready yet, although Olga managed to collect a handful, she claims were quite edible.  Lots of mushrooms too, including some really nice ones. The hike was easy, but somewhere half-way into the canyon, we decided to go back, because it was getting to be around 1pm and we were worried about being able to make a few more stops.  

Yep. I was at Asbyrgi too. 

Another view of the back of the canyon.

Dettifoss and Selfoss. When we arrived to Asbyrgi, I asked at the information center about the roads to the waterfalls. Turns out I was right about the eastern road - it is all gravel, although the visitor center employee told us it was in "great shape". But I was wrong about the western road - it only had seven kilometers out of about 50 of gravel road, although it was described to us as "bad shape". At the end, we decided on the western road, as the sun was slowly heading west, and I was both concerned about the definition of "good shape", and the ability to take pictures of the waterfall.

Walking to Dettifoss.

The visitor center employee did not lie. The gravel portion of the road was in a pretty bad shape. In fact - there are two separate styles of gravel road on the route - the first one is a narrow path (two cars have to be very careful when driving past each other), but resonably flat, and without the idiotic ribbed ground that creates much inconvenience when driving over them. The second style is a wide road in a really horrible condition.  Eventually, we defeated the gravel roads, and reached Dettifoss parking.

The river, with Selfoss at the back.

From there, it was a matter of hiking the trails leading to the two waterfalls. We first went to Dettifoss.  Just wow. It's a large and immensely powerful waterfall with a significant drop, and A LOT of water going over the edge. There are multiple viewing points - both at the level of the waterfall, and a bit more of a bird's eye view, and all create awesome opportunities for pictures.

Dettifoss makes a rainbow.

Dettifoss. Nuff said.

The water falling.

Dettifoss. Close-up.

Dettifoss, full view.

From Dettifoss we took a short trail up the river (about 800 meters) to Selfoss, which is also a sheer drop kind of a waterfall (again, a comparison with Niagara Falls is not out of the order), except that the drop is a very deep curve, which increases significantly the surface of the waterfall, but decreases its power (which is not as large as the power of Dettifoss). 

Sellfoss.

Sellfoss. Getting closer.

On top of Sellfoss.

Dettifoss is best viewed from west side where we were, although east side tourists can come right to the drop itself.  With Selfoss, it's reversed - east side has a great view of the drop on the West side (the larger part of the curve), while west siders can reach the very tip of the waterfall's rim.  Nevertheless, both falls offered ample opportunities for awesome pictures.

Upon return to the parking lot, we utilized the purchases made earlier in the day, as well as our prior supplies, and had a picnic.

Hvrir.  From there, the kids demanded home.  I wanted to actually get to Myvatn and spend some time there. So... turns out, the first attraction I wanted to visit that was directly on our way, is Hvrir - the geothermal area on the other side of a chain of hills from the world famous Myvatn baths.  This turned out to be both the right decision and the wrong decision. The right decision - because it is a really cool area with a lot of geothermal activity, although without the actual geysers.  The wrong decision - because kids hated the small of sulfur, and chose not to explore the area with us. This pretty much put the last nail in the coffin of our travels for the day.

Olga and I did walk around the area - deciding not to hike up the hills, but visiting all the locations at the bottom of the hill - lots of mudbaths - some quite active, and hot springs - some with some boiling activity.  Lots of acrid sulfur clouds coming out of various places.  Beautiful colors - just the right time to start taking golden hour pictures.

Back to Akureyri. The kids were spent, so we decided to cut our losses, and Olga took over the driving home. We chose the toll-free route - increasing our commute by 16 km and 15 minutes - a reasonable alternative to spending another 1500 krona on the tunnel.  Along the way, I utilized my free time, and took an umeasurable number of pictures from the car.

The best part of Iceland isn't really the specific places we visit. The best part of Iceland is Iceland itself - which is to say, the landscapes along the way.  I decided to try to capture as many of them as possible, while Olga was driving. Setting up the shutter speed to 1/1250th of  a second (later revised to 1/1000th, 1/800th, and finally - 1/600th), and letting the camera figure out the appreture, made for photographs that were captured at very high speeds, and therefore - with little to no blur (sometimes and occasional blurry object would show up on the foreground as we were passing it - I made certain to take many pictures of the same scene, to ensure proper shot, and have at least one shot per scene with a decent horizon line).

I will do a separate post on photos taken from the car - they represent well the beauty and the diversity of the land we are travelling through.

Upon arrival, we dropped the kids off at the house, and went downtown (the kids opted to recuperate) . We spent about two hours total, searching (in vain) for ice cream, eventually, settling on a glass of wine and a beer (respectively) - I got to taste locally made stout - a rich, 11% alcohol brew with a taste similar to bourbon barrel stouts. Really nice, although I was grateful, their glass was only 250 ml. 

On our way home, we stopped by another Netto, which turned out to be inside a small shopping mall, which was still bustling with activity at 9pm.  Bought some additional food, went home, cooked lamb and pasta, had dinner and collapsed.

Driving. Odometer reading is 337 km.

Walking. A record day with 18,848 steps counted by Google Fit. A major chunk came in Asbyrgi, but we also walked quite a bit at the Dettifoss/Selfoss site.

Day 6 plan. We head home to Reykjavik. Probably will visit Borganes and something else on Snaefells peninsula.