Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran Church

I had the first day in Reykjavik to myself and just explored the city. This building is quite a landmark, towering over everthing else in town. Outside is a statue of Leif Erikson who was the first European to set foot in North America, 500 years before Columbus.

Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran Church

Iceland Horses

They are small but very rugged. They also have a unique gait called "tölt" in addition to the walk, trot, canter, and gallop.

Churches and such... the orange ones are lighthouses. Some of the older ones have sod roofs, and even some sod fences.

The Ocean

Of course, much of their life centers around the ocean. Much beautiful, rugged coastline. We had a chance to go whale watching and saw the humpback fluke and a pod or pilot whales.

People

I always end up meeting at least a few nice people on tour, and often from many different countries. There were a couple of other Americans but also Canadians, Australians, French, Germans, and Bulgarians. And Polish if you count our guide.

Food

First day there I found this cafe (Kaffi Loki) near the church in the first photos. They had a combo platter of typical Icelandic food including cooked whitefish mashed with potatoes on rye bread (upper right), dried and salted fish "jerky" (right middle), salmon on bread with butter and sour cream, smoked lamb on bread, and just a tiny bit of fermented shark. The last was awful, tastes like ammonia... but I guess it was one way of preserving food.

Waterfalls

They have at last count... um... I think about 5 TRILLION of them! And we stopped at every one! Some quite impressive, though... the first one was used for a scene in "Game of Thrones".

Tectonic Plates

Iceland sits on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart. This divergence creates a rift valley and allows for volcanic activity as magma rises to fill the gap. You can visibly see evidence of these plates separating in locations like ingvellir National Park, where visitors can walk in the rift between the continents.

Landscape

It's a fairly stark but beautiful land. Lots of volcanic activity including bubbling mud pots, geysers, etc. Also glaciers hot water springs which folks like to soak in.

Vikings

There are, of course, many museums with Viking "stuff". This one (Viking World) had a viking style boat which was sailed to New York in the year 2000 to commemorate Leif Erikson s journey to the New World a thousand years earlier

Miscellaneous