Iceland Day 9 - July 3, 2011

It was raining when we left Hveragerdi for the hour drive to the airport.  Dropped Laur & Chris off at the airport, then finished the Icelandic Adventure alone hitting some of the places the Rivera’s visited before we arrived. 

Our first stop was Pingvellir, the site of the first Parliament in Iceland.  The visitor’s center had nice touch-screen videos that gave the history and geology of the site.  Chieftains from the different regions of Iceland use to meet here for an assembly every summer to discuss issues and make rules for the land.  The spot they met at is located in a valley that we walked down to.   We saw the lawspeaker’s spot marked by an Icelandic flag, the drowning pools (where some women were supposedly executed for crimes they had committed), the wishing pond, and a cute chapel.  Another highlight was finding an old measuring stick that early settlers used to measure cloth that they wished to trade (2x elbow to fingertips).  Having watched the videos of the area at the visitor’s center, Pingvellir was an interesting take.  Today the area is sometimes used for major festivals in Iceland.

Next, we drove a little over a half hour back to Reykjavik to see the capital city.  Checked into The Capital Inn near the city airport which had clean rooms and a shared bath down the hall.  We were only about a 10 minute drive to the downtown area.  Since it was Sunday, we found free parking and walked to Landnamssyningin (Settlement Exhibition).  Here we viewed an excavated longhouse inhabited by some of Reykjavik’s earliest settlers around 930-1000 AD. This museum also had excellent touch-screen videos showing what the house and city originally looked like. There were artifacts that had surfaced in the area, and a video on the history of the Vikings/Norsemen in Iceland and beyond.  If you took the time to watch the videos, this was a good overview of the early history of the country.

The only problem with our timing in Reykjavik was that we arrived around 3pm and most museums closed at 5pm.  We were starving after the Settlement Exhibition so we decided to seek out a late lunch.  Found a place Laur & Chris has eaten at that had large bread bowls and soup.  Suarta Kaffio was perfect…Joe had the Mexican beef soup (a.k.a. chili) and I had cream of mushroom one more time.  After lunch we wandered into the Bonus supermarket to buy a few items to take home. 

We made a mad dash across town to get to Christ the King Cathedral for Sunday evening Mass in English.  There were not a ton a pews inside for a Cathedral, but they were all full, so we had to stand in the back.  We were pleasantly surprised by this lively Catholic community in a primarily non-Catholic country.  There was a noticeable Filipino population in the congregation, some who sang or played guitar in the choir.  All responses and songs were projected on two screens at the front of the church, and at least one song was familiar to us.  Overall, it was great find for us.

After Church, we walked back to the main streets.  Downtown Reykjavik is a relatively small city with a harbor (maybe the size of Newport, RI or Salzburg, Austria).  There are small skyscrapers and hotels facing the harbor, with the main pedestrian/shopping streets of Bankastraeti, Laugavegur and Skolavordustigur a few blocks in.  City Hall is located on a picturesque pond, and Hallgrimskirkja (Iceland’s largest church) is a landmark that can be seen from just about anywhere in the city.   We spent the evening shopping for souvenirs and then got dinner at Kaffi Solon, which seemed to be a happening place.  We took a quick drive down by the harbor on the way home to get a feel for the city, passed Hofdi,  the house where Reagan and Gorbachev met in 1986, and then returned to our hotel to start packing.