After another lovely breakfast, we set out to explore Reykjavik. We strolled along, stopping when a shop looked interesting. My favorite shop had four stories. The first two floors contained lovely Icelandic souvenirs. As I approached the third level, I detected a familiar aroma…new books! What a pleasant surprise.
The top floor features a cafe and opens out to a sweet little sitting area.
We soon found ourselves walking along the waterfront. Here’s a pic of the Harpa concert Hall, it opened in 2011. It has received many awards for its architecture. It is home to the Iceland Symphony and Icelandic Opera. Sadly Harpa is closed for renovations. It must be stunning in bright sunlight.
This is one of the ubiquitous green scooters found throughout Reykjavik. It was just standing there in the middle of the pedestrian walkway. I told Timmy to hop on.
Off in the distance I spied the Sun Voyager sculpture. Jon Gunnar intended it to symbolize the promise of new undiscovered territory. It’s constructed of stainless steel and stands on a circle of granite slabs. I parked Timmy on a rock and ran off to snap some pics, thinking “too bad there’s no sun on the Sun Voyager today”.
A nice man was trying to eat his lunch nearby when I imposed on him to take this pic. He kept having to move backwards in an attempt to fit the entire piece in the frame. He wasn’t quite successful…but then again he wasn’t getting paid.
Here’s the full version. I ran up the side of a sloping hill to get the full view. …I know, why couldn’t he?
As we were in the general vicinity anyway (well sort of) we stopped by (unannounced) to visit Endeavor.
Walking back towards the hotel we spotted a good size line at “Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Dog Stand”
Next up on the agenda: a helicopter ride to the Fagradalsfjall volcano. This was not our first time in a helicopter. Tim’s ridden in helicopters when he was in the Navy, and together we took a helicopter into the Grand Canyon.
The volcano erupted on March 19, 2021 after lying dormant for 800 years. Its’ course has changed several times since it first erupted and it has stopped spewing lava …sometimes for as long as a week-although the lava continues to flow under the mountain. It was dormant this week … until about 12 noon today. I was mesmerized by media accounts of the eruptions and decided that we need to view this once in 800 years (on the Reykjaanes Peninsula) historic event. Because we are old folks, we knew we couldn’t hike up the mountain to experience the eruption. The only way was to helicopter in.
We took a huge chance on June 20 when we booked a helicopter to the volcano with Norourflug Helicopter Co. The original booking included a stop on the mountain…but the owner of the land is now only allowing one company to land near the volcano…it’s not Norourflug. They notified us about the change, but we decided to go ahead with the booking and pray that the volcano would still be active today, July 16. Our adorable pilot, Fannar, relayed to us just how fortunate we were: 1. The only sight that his clients saw all week were rocks on the mountain and the hardened lava. 2. All flights this morning were canceled due to weather and poor cloud cover. 3. The volcano began to spontaneously erupt again today around noon time. 4. We were the first flight to get off today. Yay! Double yay!
Here’s our ride. Red like the lava flow.
Just as we took off the skies began to clear and we had beautiful views of the coastline.
So we spent about half an hour over the lava flow…making pass after pass. At one point we put our cameras down and just took it all in. It looks so different when you are viewing it straight on. The fire and sheer force of nature is overwhelming. We’ve done some pretty amazing things, but this may be the best. Certainly the most exhilarating. My heart was beating out of my chest.
These photos (stills from video) cannot convey the magnitude of what we saw. Here’s a short video.
I was so excited and so elated, it was hours before I calmed down. I kept reliving the experience and replaying all my video and all Tim’s video. Finally we ate dinner- I knew better than to eat lunch today, so I was hungry. After dinner we explored a different section of Reykjavik, taking photos along the way. Oh, we also just happened upon a grocery store and bought some supplies for the ship. Because candy.
