Whaaa? A free day on Thursday!
Thank Thor for that.
The blog does not adequately describe the schedule we've kept on this tour. Our flight landed at 5:55am Iceland time (1:55am US/body time) on our first day and we started touring by 8:30am with breakfast in Reykjavik through a late afternoon hotel check-in. We were on the road by 8am each morning, returning near 6pm each day.
Mercifully, our last full day was unscheduled, allowing us to wander Reykjavik at our own pace.
Since we weren't fortunate to catch an aurora since arriving, we first walked over to the harbor to visit
Aurora Reykjavik - Northern Lights Center. They had both static and multi-media exhibits explaining and displaying auroras (and of course, the requisite gift shop). Vimeo intro
Hmmm, no wonder we never caught one live ...
We then moved on to Listasafn, the National Gallery of Iceland which displayed both works of art spanning hundreds of years and an outstanding display of the original saga manuscripts recording the founding of the Icelandic governing parliament in 930 CE and their separation from Danish control on Dec 1, 1918. Iceland's parliament is claimed to be the oldest of any country.
No photographs were allowed in the manuscript gallery, but viewing the original of Iceland's equivalent of our US Declaration of Independence and first Constitution was moving
(Icelandic Independence)
Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason, the first woman to be elected to the Althing, Iceland's parliament, in 1915.
In the US, women weren't even allowed to vote until 1920.
Just outside the gallery, the Icelandic navy was conducting exercises ...
We couldn't leave Reykjavik without sampling Plokkfiskur, a traditional dish of fish, potatoes, onions and a bechamel-like sauce. Essentially, Icelandic leftovers, but excellent.
We continued wandering the streets of Reykjavik until late afternoon, when we returned to our hotel. The Hotel Centrum was literally built above an archeological site, visible through a glassed section of the sidewalk and at the exhibition (2 stories below our room).
The group celebrated our final evening in Iceland with an outstanding meal at Skolabru.
The blog does not adequately describe the schedule we've kept on this tour. Our flight landed at 5:55am Iceland time (1:55am US/body time) on our first day and we started touring by 8:30am with breakfast in Reykjavik through a late afternoon hotel check-in. We were on the road by 8am each morning, returning near 6pm each day.
Mercifully, our last full day was unscheduled, allowing us to wander Reykjavik at our own pace.
Since we weren't fortunate to catch an aurora since arriving, we first walked over to the harbor to visit
Aurora Reykjavik - Northern Lights Center. They had both static and multi-media exhibits explaining and displaying auroras (and of course, the requisite gift shop). Vimeo intro
Hmmm, no wonder we never caught one live ...
We then moved on to Listasafn, the National Gallery of Iceland which displayed both works of art spanning hundreds of years and an outstanding display of the original saga manuscripts recording the founding of the Icelandic governing parliament in 930 CE and their separation from Danish control on Dec 1, 1918. Iceland's parliament is claimed to be the oldest of any country.
No photographs were allowed in the manuscript gallery, but viewing the original of Iceland's equivalent of our US Declaration of Independence and first Constitution was moving
(Icelandic Independence)
Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason, the first woman to be elected to the Althing, Iceland's parliament, in 1915.In the US, women weren't even allowed to vote until 1920.
Just outside the gallery, the Icelandic navy was conducting exercises ...
We couldn't leave Reykjavik without sampling Plokkfiskur, a traditional dish of fish, potatoes, onions and a bechamel-like sauce. Essentially, Icelandic leftovers, but excellent.
We continued wandering the streets of Reykjavik until late afternoon, when we returned to our hotel. The Hotel Centrum was literally built above an archeological site, visible through a glassed section of the sidewalk and at the exhibition (2 stories below our room).
The group celebrated our final evening in Iceland with an outstanding meal at Skolabru.
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