Europe 2019 : Day 24 A Quiet Day in Reykjavik

Sunday 1st September

After the flat-out driving and walking tour of Iceland we'd just completed neither Robyn nor I wanted an overly busy last din Reykjavik. We'd booked in for a food walking tour around lunch time and had a one-day pass for the Hop On Hop Off bus which we intended to use extensively.

Other than that the major issue of concern was the early morning flight the next day to Paris. As I mentioned at the start of this Icelandic section, the main airport at Kevlavik is about 50 kilometres out of town, Our flight in the morning was leaving around 7:15am. Way too early to consider getting there form the centre of the city, so we had booked our last night in an airport hotel. We figured a transfer to that hotel late in the afternoon was going to be preferable to a 4am start the next day.

Once we'd breakfasted, checked out of our hotel and had the transfer all sorted out for 5pm, we headed off for a walk into the city. The main aim for the morning was to get to our tour meeting point at the Harpa building by 11. So we took it easy, strolling along in the fine sunny weather looking in a few shops and stopping to check out a few places we'd seen on our original walking tour on day 1.

A brief trip on the Hop-on Hop-Off bus, during which we saw on the street two groups of people from our bus tour, and we made it to Harpa with plenty of time to spare. Magnus, our guide, took us past a few familiar spots but quickly turned off to some of the smaller side streets in the city. First stop was at a small bar to try Icelandic meat soup (not that novel to us as we'd had plenty of this over the previous week, dried fish, a white ale and some fermented shark. We'd been looking forward to having a shot at this fermented shark ever since seeing Rick Stein try it out on one of his programs. The major sensation you get when you first bring this one-centimetre cube towards our face is that someone must think you've fainted. The ammonia smell cuts right through to the back of the throat. Some in our group really struggled at this point but we weren't to be deterred and stuffed it in as quickly as we could. The shark is actually quite creamy in texture, without a lot of strong flavours. Which comes as a bit of a shock after the smell. The beer was a welcome cleanser. Even more so as Robyn hates the stuff and I just couldn't leave a full glass behind on the table.

Over the next few stops we tried smoked trout and cottage cheese on rye bread, smoked lamb on flat bread (must try smoking lamb over the coming summer), and rye bread ice cream at Cafe Loki, and Arctic char at Messinn. This last is a fish in the salmon family native to arctic and sub-arctic waters. Excellent eating and we were sorry we hadn't tried this previously on our trip.

By this time we'd completed a loop around the centre of Reykjavik and found ourselves back at the famous (or infamous) hot dog stand. Coffee and cakes followed for desert at a nearby cafe and we found we'd been out and about for close on three hours. An excellent little tour with a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide.

Reykjavik shops

After the food and the walking Robyn wanted to find some Icelandic wool and a knitting pattern. That took a while.  All the shops had completed items. Luckily we remembered our tour guide had mentioned a shop in the main street run by some older women that proved to have what she was looking for. 

Knitting shop

After that we decided the only thing to do was to head off towards the nearest bus stop back at Harpa. We've used these Hop On Hop Off buses in a number of other cities, and while we probably don't utilise them to their greatest extent we find we get our money's worth out of them. A couple of hours sitting up top at the front and you get to see parts of a city that you'd normally just skip.

Streets of Reykjavik

Perry finds a new friend

The transfer to that night's hotel was completed with little fanfare and we were starting to be sorry to be leaving Iceland. It had been a good trip, though probably not one we'd ever repeat. The distances are just too much.