Hello from the Northern Hemisphere

Day 17-18: Reykjavik

The ship docked at around 6 am, and we all had to be off by 9 am. Fortunately my hotel was within walking distance and I got an early check in.

Everyone says the Opera House is a “must” so that was my first destination, and I got there just in time to do a guided tour.

It’s called “Harpa”, a name selected from a country wide competition. Harpa is Icelandic for a harp, it’s also a common women’s name, and one of the months in the Norse calendar was Harpa!

It’s very cleverly built. On all the glass panes (of which there are 10,000), there is a blue light which shines brightly during the long dark winter days.

In one of the concert halls, which is used for conferences, rock bands etc, they have large batons made of either wood or fabric, and they can swivel them around depending on the acoustics needed. In another hall, they can change the lighting colours with magnificent effect

There was a small concert going on in the main concert hall during our visit.

James had told me about a bakery which sold the best cinnamon scrolls, so I had to try them. I also discovered there is an Icelandic cake called “Sara”

Did the compulsory visit to the Church, and found the rainbow street.

Also visited Perlan, a museum which is one of Reykjavík’s most famous landmarks. It was once a place to store the city’s hot water and was, at first, just a block of enormous water tanks placed next to each other. The tanks had stood that way since the mid-20th century when a hemispherical glass dome was planted on top of it. This museum has an ice cave you can walk through, a planetarium and amazing footage of the volcano which erupted very close to Reykjavik in March 2021.

The next day I did what’s called the “Golden Circle” tour which highlights all the amazing landscape and geological features near Reykjavik.

Iceland sits on a ridge between two tectonic plates – the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. About 70 million years ago, the plates were conjoined but a mantle plume (whatever that is) caused the plates to split. At Thingvellir (our first stop), you can clearly see the rock wall of the North American plate.

We then visited the place where there are a lot of geysers.

This was followed by an amazing waterfall

And then the crater of a volcano

No wonder they call this the land of fire and ice! And a lot of geology in one day.

Our guide told us that some of the landscape we passed formed the backdrop for “Game of Thrones”

Time to say goodbye to the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks for joining me on the journey. I have loved all your comments.

Until next time……..