Monday – Reykjavik Day 1

The newly-arranged itinerary meant I had an unexpected class today (Blues Afloat – a simple boat scene in three colours), and an opportunity to take in a couple of lectures. We arrived in Reykjarvik, the Capital of Iceland, at approximately 4:30pm, giving us a few hours to go exploring before dinner time.

The distance into the town centre from the port was approximately 3 miles along by the coast. The walk was hard-going due to a strong, biting wind in our faces the whole way. Not that the walk was without interest; the views across to the mountains in the North was impressive, and there were several small monuments to grab our attention along the way. One such oddity was a building, known as ‘The Raven’s Nest’. At first glance, it could easily be mistaken for a pile of old junk; closer inspection, however, reveals order, and a structure, within the twisted metal, like some modern-art sculpture. In fact, this is the summer hideaway of eccentric Icelandic film director, Hrafn Gunnlaughsson.

With the cold head-wind slowing us down, it took us a good ninety minutes to reach the old harbour, on the corner of which is situated Harpa Concert Hall, a large, modern building that looks like some architect’s fantasy on the outside and only gets more intriguing once you step through its doors. The whole building has a curious honey-combed glass shell; inside, walkways take you up 5 floors, with cafes, bars and a couple of small gift shops. The main concert hall, of course, is inaccessible, and we wondered more than once, what the inside must be like… quite large, we imagined.

With time getting on, we spent a while around the waterfront looking for a monument that we’d been asked to seek out. ‘Eve Online’ is a popular online space-exploration game of gargantuan proportions; the monument, we were told, features panels of all the paid-up members who were actively playing the game on the 1st of March 2014 (one of whom was Tracey’s son, Warren). We searched high and low but could only find one monument, adjacent to the Maritime Museum, which seemed featureless, and probably signifying something nautical, so we figured that couldn’t be the one. Finally, we gave up our search and headed back to the ship; we were getting hungry, and dinner would only be served until 9:30pm….

With the wind behind us, and hunger calling, it only took us an hour to get back to the port (with a few stops along the way, to photograph the sunset)… just in time for dinner.

After dinner, we watched the show then togged-up and went back out on deck to look for the Northern Lights. I’ve left my DSLR at home, but Tracey’s camera, once she’d figured out how to alter its settings accordingly, was excellent for capturing the aurora. The job wasn’t made any easier by a strange, night-piercing searchlight that seemed to be coming from the small island of Videy, just across the water from us. Unless we’re very much mistaken, we think this is an installation created by none other than Yoko Ono, to commemorate the birthday of John Lennnon; which is all very well, but if they’d turned it off, it would have made aurora-spotting a whole lot easier. Needless to say; we did see the lights, but only very faintly, and after about 45-minutes, we couldn’t stand the cold any longer.