AKUREYRI, ICELAND

Today, we arrived at our first Icelandic port-of-call, Akureyri.

We have been here before, on ‘Voyager’ in 2015 (on the ‘Eclipse’ cruise). On our previous visit, we opted for a simple, short, local walk. Today, we were booked on an excursion to see Godafoss Waterfall.

It’s a 45-minute coach journey there, and the same again to come back, with roughly an hour’s free time at the location to wander around and take photos. The location feels like it is in the middle of nowhere, with distant mountains visible in all directions and a relatively flat, slightly undulating landscape in between. Not a lot in the way of trees or other significant features. It’s clearly a popular spot, though, with a busy visitor centre and car parks that were bursting with cars, coaches and motorhomes.

From the bus it was a relatively short walk along the banks of the river to the falls, on good, well-maintained pathways. Retracing our steps enabled us to cross a footbridge to walk up the opposite bank and view it from a different direction. I could happily have stayed there all day.

As waterfalls go, it was pretty impressive, as I hope the following photos will testify…

On our way back to the port, we made a thirty minute stop at the Botanical Gardens in Akureyri, which isn’t really our thing, but was pleasant nevertheless.

Tonight, we chose to have a quick dinner in The Grill in order to Watch for whales from our balcony as we left the fjord.