Ian and Wendy's Travel Blog » Iceland

Dining in Reykjavik

Wendy — Tue, 02 Jul 2002 18:02:00 +0000

Out for dinner at Thrir Frakkar Hja Ulfari. (That was a mouthful). So was this puffin.

We went out for 2 meals in Reykjavik. The first meal was at Thrir Frakkar Hja Ulfari (Address: Baldursgotu 14, Telephone: 552 3939 ). This was a small cozy restaurant in the middle of a residential neighbourhood. Prices were outrageous, but apparently were very reasonable for Iceland. The restaurant featured a lot of local dishes – Ian had puffin as an appetizer, and the most delicious salmon he has ever had as a main course. Wendy had a vegetarian meal which was also excellent.

Our second meal was at One Woman Restaurant (20b Laugavegur 552 8410). This was a self-serve vegetarian restaurant located along the main strip. Prices were a lot more reasonable here. The dishes were flavourful and filling, although they were not fresh. The restaurant is on the second floor and offers good people watching below. Of course, this being Iceland (even in the summer) everyone seemed to be scurrying to get to their destination. The atmosphere is relaxed and open, with interesting vegetable and fruit artwork up on the walls.

Well, we saw a lot in a two day visit. Despite the miserable weather and our exhaustion on the first day, we had a great time. We couldn’t have afforded to stay more than two days, but there also wasn’t too much more to do around the capital.

Sights of Reykjavik: Hallgrimskirkja cathedral, National Gallery of Iceland, Open-Air Folk Museum, Laugardalur public swimming pool, Golden Circle Tour (including Thingvellir and Gullfoss), The Blue Lagoon

Wendy — Tue, 02 Jul 2002 17:55:00 +0000

We had two days to see everything we could in Iceland. We were exhausted from our flight, but were determined to resist taking a ’short’ nap.

We made our way to the tourist bureau, where we got a 24 hour visitor’s pass, which got us free buses and admission to a lot of museums. In addition, we bought tickets for a 1 day guided tour the following day – "Golden Circle". The visitor’s pass got us a discount on the guided tour, so before we left the tourist bureau we’d already almost broken even on the pass!

Hallgrimskirkja, a cathedral at the top of a hill, towers over much of downtown Reykjavik. This was the only blue sky we saw while we were there.

We walked up to Hallgrimskirkja, a cathedral at the top of the hill. It’s a modern concrete affair, but with interesting curvy architecture from the outside. There’s an elevator to the top of the clock tower with great views of the area. There’s the standard souvenir shop at the entry. You have to pay to take the elevator to the top, but it was only $2 apiece, if memory serves. To get a good photo, stand a little ways down the street that it faces.

We visited the National Gallery so we could feel cultured.

Next, we checked out the National Gallery of Iceland which is a small gallery right downtown with too much modern art for our taste. There was 3 floors, and a temporary exhibition on the first floor. No pictures are allowed, which was a shame, because the painting we liked the most was nowhere to be found in the gift shop. It was an interesting little taste of Icelandic art, and made us feel cultured.

What was ironic was that we saw this same scene being played out in Turkey later on in our trip, but not for show!

Next we took a bus out to the Open-Air Folk Museum. The local buses run frequently (even on Sunday), and the driver was very helpful in getting us to where we wanted to go. The folk museum was an interesting collection of old buildings detailing the history of Iceland, with some very honest admissions of a lot of mistakes that have been made. There is your usual collection of original-era houses, with volunteers knitting, baking bread, the usual. A few houses with grass roofs, some people cutting grass in a field with a scythe, and we were done. (what was ironic was that we would see the scythe being used later on in our trip in Turkey, but it wasn’t just for show then) Don’t mind my lack of enthusiasm – we were barely standing by this point – I think the King himself could have been in one of the buildings and we wouldn’t have been that impressed! Note that most displays are now translated (loosely) into English, for those of us whose Icelandic is a little rough.

After a much-needed nap at the hotel, we headed to one of the public swimming pools: "Laugardalur" . This was no regular swimming pool. It was geothermally heated, like almost all of Iceland, and was more of a ’spa experience’ than a pool. There was a few large hot tubs, a cooler swimming pool with lanes for swimmers, a huge bath-tub warm pool with a 6 story high waterslide emptying into it (with no adult supervision, and several "hot pots". The hot pots are like small circular hot tubs, with temperatures varying from 65 to 110F. All for $2 apiece – it was the only reasonably priced attraction in Reykjavik! We met lots of other tourists here, and it was a great way to wind down the day.

Geothermal fields on the tour.

The following day, we took the Golden Circle Tour. We are usually averse to guided tours, but it was the best way to see a lot of the southwest of Iceland in a short amount of time (even our backpacker’s guide, Let’s Go, recommended the tour). The tour takes in the geologic and historic highlights of the area. We saw many volcanoes, a greenhouse area (with a stop in a souvenir shop of course), a magnificent waterfall called Gullfoss, an active geyser area, and Thingvellir, where the Icelandic parliament was formed. For more information on this tour, just do a Google search on "Golden Circle Iceland". It was definitely worthwhile.

Ahhh, much better. This is the Blue Lagoon, which is actually the runoff of a power plant. Not bad runoff!

To cap off our sightseeing in Reykjavik, we visited The Blue Lagoon. In true Icelandic style, this turns out to be the runoff from a power plant that they’ve turned into a tourist attraction! (www.bluelagoon.is) It’s not a cheap trip: it ended up being about $65 for the two of us, including admission and a public shuttle from downtown (30 mins away). The lagoon is a large silica-filled pool with purported healing powers. Everyone rubs these salts over their face and body as an exfoliant. It’s the only time you’ll see men in public exfoliating! The water is very warm, but not uncomfortably so. We stayed in for quite a while. The facilities are incredibly modern, with electronic passes to open your locker, very clean, and very well organized. There is a boutique gift store that sell a lot of spa type stuff. There is also an expensive restaurant where you can sit and enjoy a view of the lagoon.

Even on a rainy overcast day, this was a great thing to do, as it so warm. One last tip: even on a very short layover in Reykjavik (less then one day) it may be possible to visit the Blue Lagoon. It is located very close to the airport, and there are a few direct buses from the airport.

Reykjavik

Wendy — Mon, 01 Jul 2002 18:17:00 +0000

We spent 3 days and 2 nights in Reykjavik, Iceland on the way to London, from San Francisco. We were there in July. It was a worthwhile stopover to get a small "taste" of Iceland. Be warned, Iceland is very, very expensive. It’s on par with other Scandinavian countries.

Getting there
From San Francisco, a direct flight to London on BA was going to cost us $1000US. A flight with Icelandair with a 3 day layover was only going to cost us $1200US, so we figured, why not. The only catch was that we had to go through Minneapolis, with a 7 hour layover. (We pulled out our trusty Let’s Go USA, and it turns out the only thing worth doing in Minneapolis is the Mall of America. Conveniently located a 10 minute bus ride from the airport, it was a great way to pass some time!)

Upgraded to Business Class!

On the way there, we got a free upgrade to Business Class. We had checked our bags all the way through in Minneapolis, so we figured we didn’t need to show up particularly early to the gate. We showed up with 45 minutes to spare. The gate agents were furious, said they had been paging us, etc etc., that it’s an international flight, and you have to show up 2 hours in advance. Pretty ridiculous, since our bags were already on the plane! Obviously we were coming back. They probably were just annoyed that we didn’t follow the 2 hour rule and kill time in their airport shopping mall rather then the mall just down the street. Anyways, bottom line is, we got the last 2 seats on the flight, which happened to be business class bulkhead.

Icelandair service was average – equivalent to an American carrier, but not at the same level as Air Canada (We’re biased, of course). Even business class wasn’t anything that special. We arrived in Iceland at 7am. We had tried to sleep but were mostly unsuccessful.

Getting Around

Arriving in Iceland. we believe the smoke you can see in the background is from the Blue Lagoon. It's a good story, at any rate.

The airport is located in Keflavik, about a 40 minute bus ride from Rekjavik. Make sure to ask for a return ticket to save a few kroner. They drop off at almost every hotel in downtown. Almost everyone we spoke to in Iceland spoke fluent English, by the way.

Getting around is extremely easy. There is an excellent bus system, and every tourist service (airport shuttle, guided tours) will all pick you up at your hotel, for free.

Hotel Esja – $75 per PERSON?
As part of our air ticket, we had made a reservation at Icelandair Esja hotel, which Ian thought was going to cost us $75 a night. What he didn’t know is that it was A) a 45 minute walk from downtown, and B) $75 per PERSON per night! This hotel was clean, but the rooms were fairly small. The hotel itself had a pretty drab exterior. Reception checked us in fairly quick.

Luckily, we were able to bail out on our reservation. Ian told them that their own web site had told us it would be $75 per night (he was wrong) and kicked up a fuss. They didn’t try to charge us – not even for the phone calls we made to the budget hotels trying to find somewhere else to go. We would primarily not recommend this hotel due to it’s inconvenient location. It’s a pretty long walk, unless you want to shell out a lot of money for a cab, or wait outside for a bus.

Salvation Army Guest House
Where do you go when you’re short on dough? Well, the Salvation Army of course! They ran a backpacker’s hotel in the thick of downtown so we headed there. We got a double bed with common shower for $70 US for two people! It was very nice, clean, and quiet. The owner was incredibly nice and helped us with everything we needed. The common showers were a little mucky – bring flip-flops. Some of the showers had little chairs in them to put your clothes on, others didn’t. They have a big luggage storage room for people checking in early.

Safety
We have never felt as safe traveling as we did in Iceland. Iceland has an almost non-existent crime rate. We saw no homeless people at all. Even at the swimming pool, locals didn’t think twice about letting their young children out of their sight. We guess there has to be some advantage in living in a place as cold as this!

Temperature and Surroundings
Cold. Very cold. Especially coming from California! Even in the middle of their summer, temperatures barely cracked 70F (20C) when we were there, and most of the time were in the 50’s (10C). Iceland is mostly barren (Canadians: think Sudbury) and rocky. It used to be 90% tree covered, but they had a little problem with deforestation. There is a big effort underway to restore the vegetation, but they’re definitely not there yet. The mountains and hills are beautiful, but it’s a pretty desolate place (or at least the parts we saw in the southwest).