A balmy 13.5 degrees today - at least it wasn't raining. Denise and I took the hop on hop off bus into downtown Reykjavik this morning. Reykjavik seems very empty. Lots of big spaces between the buildings and not many people.
We got off at the old harbour and had coffee and "traditional icelandic cake". It reminded me of Linzer torte - but instead of the raspberry jam there was some unidentifiable flavour of jam. I also increased my Icelandic vocabulary by one more word: Kaffi
After that we walked along the harbour passing the Harpa Concert hall (where we will be going for lunch tomorrow), desperately looking for some souvenir shops, or any shops really.
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| Harpa Concerr Hall and coast guard ship |
Eventually we managed to find 2 souvenir shops hidden behind the Reykjavik flea market. A word of warning about Iceland - everything is expensive, but it's not because the Icelanders are trying to rip you off (indeed it's kind of hard to find anywhere that wants to sell you a souvenir). It's just that most things have to be imported and since the entire population of Iceland is only 370 thousand people they can't import in bulk.
Walking on along the harbour front we passed the Viking Ship sculpture and Hofdi House (which was where Reagan met Gorbachev in 1986 to end the Cold War)
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| Hofdi House |
By this time it was late afternoon and we'd walked a long way. So after a long day yesterday and an early start tomorrow, we decided to catch the HOHO bus back to the hotel and settle in for the night.
Tomorrow we meet our Tauck tour guide and board the cruise ship.
Was watching Jayne McDonald's programme last night and she managed to find some lovely but expensive shops in Iceland.
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