2019 Russia #19

July 14, 2019 – Reykjavik

Our flight from Helsinki, with a quick stop in Stockholm, was uneventful. Iceland’s main airport is Keflavik, located an hour south of Reykjavik, the capital, where we will spend our three days before heading back to our home in Canada. It’s a modern airport, but not particularly busy. It’s located on a treeless lava bed, which pretty much describes this portion of Iceland; it seems the planet has not finished building the place!

First order of business is to purchase tickets on the shuttle bus to-and-from downtown Reykjavik. The polite and friendly young man at the desk informed us that it would only cost roughly $200. Steve immediately revolted, announcing that he would find another, less predatory, means of transportation, thanks very much. After a quick trip to the taxi and rental car desks, he discovered that a mere $200 to travel an hour in this country constituted a bargain, and he slunk back to the desk for a pair of bus tickets. The friendly young man took it all in stride. I’m sure he’s seen that many times before. This place is expensive, we ain’t in Russia anymore!

Note: To view photos full-size, right-click on the image and select ‘open image in new tab’.

Glum people standing in the rain. And statues.

I’m sure this represents entropy, or the relentless battle against gravity, or something. Still made me uneasy.

A future Icelandic forest.

The drive to Reykjavik took us through a unique landscape, composed primarily of basalt flows. One can estimate the relative age of the basalt flow by the abundance and vigour of the lichen growing on it, and the numerous patches of bare rock attest to the frequency of recent eruptions. That lichen has a tough job!

Our bus trip ended in the suburbs, at a very large parking lot that also had a taxi stand and a city bus stop. We opted for the city bus after Google Maps indicated that the bus route traversed a big loop through downtown, eventually stopping within a block or so of our apartment. No photos to share, alas, due to the rain-streaked windows. This apparently qualified as a sunny summer day, as the light rain was falling straight down and the temperature had easily reached two digits.

Everything worked out the way it was supposed to, and we emerged from the bus for the short walk to our apartment, which was perfectly acceptable and only triple the price that we had become accustomed to paying in Russia. We’ll look for a corner grocery tomorrow to stock up on the basics, but for tonight we’ll have to dig into Debbie’s Tickle Trunk, which seems to have an endless supply of wine, sausage, cheese, crackers, and olives!

Next morning we find a corner grocery, which turns out to be only a few blocks away, and after a hearty breakfast we hike into the downtown for a look around. We have a walking tour lined up for tomorrow, but today we’re just going to wander around and take a few photos.

Landscaping. This is the front yard to our building.

There’s a pretty little lake on the way into downtown.

Iceland is noted for its geothermal resources, and Icelanders use it creatively. Reykjavik is heated geothermally, and the waste hot water is dispersed along a sandy ocean beach south of the city, creating a warm-water swimming opportunity. Construction here reveals how they heat the sidewalks to prevent ice accumulation in winter!

One of the first things we noted on our walk is that everything is properly built and in good repair. And while the weather may be depressing to someone used to more sunny climes, it hasn’t dampened the Icelanders’ sense of humor or their penchant for public art. There are colorful murals everywhere.

A sign on the window of a pub.

There are a lot of things going on in this one…

Much of the downtown core is traffic-restricted, creating a very pleasant ambience.

Locals enjoying the warm summer day.

Much of the downtown is reserved for pedestrians, which is very nice. There is very little of the glass-and-steel that dominates North American cities. Everything has a very European feel to it. Which shouldn’t be surprising, as it IS European, kinda. It’s not a member of the EU, but has visa-free travel and is a member of NATO even though it has no armed forces.

At one stage in our walk, we rounded a corner and there in front of us was a Hoppy Bus! We had no idea that Reykjavik had a hop-on-hop-off bus, but it does. One route, one day, 50 bucks. Since it wasn’t raining and we could get a good look out the windows, off we went.

Our old friend, the Hop-On Hop-Off Bus.

It turns out there IS a more modern city, it’s just not downtown.

Could be a whale. Or something from the Burgess Shale.

We bumped into beautiful pieces like this in the most unlikely places.

Cement cathedral. Probably won’t blow down anytime soon.

We had fish and chips and a beer for dinner at a downtown pub. It was excellent, and cost just slightly less than the GDP of Latvia. Debbie struck up a conversation with the barmaid, which of course she did; everyone likes to talk with her. The young lady explained to us that the banking crisis of 2008 hit the country very hard, and they made the difficult decision to not bail out their banks and to work hard and pay their way out of the hole they found themselves in. After, they determined that they wanted to keep their social programs, and they didn’t ever want to see another debt crisis, so they had to pay as they went through production and consumption taxes. Hence, the high costs, but on the other hand, the economy is healthy, and everything works.

The next morning, we have time to walk downtown for breakfast and to go for a quick walkabout before our official walking tour.

Biggest Rorschach Blot I’ve ever seen.

This explains that all the downtown streets are named after gods in the Icelandic pantheon.

Our guide and intrepid crew. As you can see from the people who still have hair, it’s a stiff breeze this morning!

A monument to Ingolfur Arnarson, who established Reykjavik, or ‘Smoke Cove’. He named it after the hot springs.

The Althing, or parliament. The oldest parliament in the western world, established 930 AD.

A monument to civil disobedience, which the Icelanders regard as the foundation of democracy.

The concert hall and conference center.

A very unique building. The front wall is composed of glass blocks.

These are two of the four Icelandic Coast Guard vessels. Iceland prides itself on not having a navy, or any armed forces for that matter. These vessels are unarmed, of course, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t respected. In the 1970s, Iceland was in a ‘cod war’ with Britain and West Germany over the extent of their exclusive fishing zone. In the end, the unarmed Coast Guard vessels rammed no less than 15 British warships and cut the fishing gear off dozens of commercial boats, until the world finally relented and extended its exclusive zone to 200 miles. Who needs guns?

The Icelandic Red Cross vessel.

And that’s it. Time to head back to the apartment, eat the last of our eggs and toast, and get ready for the flight home tomorrow. It was only a few days ago that we realized we are circumnavigating the globe. What a world, where you can go around the world without really meaning to!