Reykjavik Harbour And The Northern Lights
Dec. 8th, 2015 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeThe wind is starting to pick up now and I can hear the intermittent groaning of stressed metal outside. The rain is skimming across the street and although I have seen worse storms, I fear that this is only going to get worse. Being stuck in the hotel does feel a little isolating and I wish Wolfie was with me, but I have been down to the restaurant where I had an agreeable if just adequate burger served with the pink hamburger sauce which seems quite popular here. I had to leave quite quickly though as a ghastly family from Liverpool arrived, with two of their kids playing up and the father adopting the shout at them method of discipline. Some of the kids didn't want any of the food while two were watching the Everton v Crystal Palace match on their tablets while at the table. I had seen the kids running about the hotel earlier in the day and so decided to skip dessert and head back to my room for a shower and a further sense of windswept isolation. Sometimes I bring it on myself. Looking out of the window - something else we have been warned against - I see street signs and lampposts swaying and yet the occasional person still walking down the street oblivious to the danger they are in. I have no idea what they are thinking but I certainly wouldn't want to be out there now.
Unlike the hell outside at present, Sunday dawned crisp and sunny, the perfect winter's day in many respects. It was bitterly cold, with temperature failing to surpass freezing, but a brisk walk along the shore soon put that out of my mind, particularly when observing the crystal clear water of the bay and the stunning mountain backdrop, with snowy hills plunging into the azure. Drinking it in, I decided to walk along the coastline to the harbour, stopping every now and again to talk to people, most of whom were tourists. I helped one couple take a picture while I took many pictures of the shiny metallic longboat sculpture which has recently appeared by the shoreline. Moving on, I breathed in the crisp clean Icelandic air and enjoyed the sun shining down on the pristine snow of the mountains, trying to ignore the soiled sludge that the majority of roads and pavements had become. My first destination was the Harpa concert hall and cultural centre. Leading up to it, there's a steaming pathway of water in the middle of which sits a statue of a violinist while inside there's a huge amphitheatre and a handful of shops. This isn't the most striking aspect of the building though, which is the architecture as the exterior of the building is made out of glass cuboid boxes stacked upon each other in a displaced diagonal fashion. This means it captures the light in a myriad of different ways and creates many effects when it's lit up from the interior at nighttime. You can also go into the main concourse and observe these boxes more closely as well as marvelling at the exceptional view of the harbour, the city and the bay that they afford. There are also an array of concave and convex panels within the building which makes it shimmer in an other worldly fashion.
I was enjoying my stroll through Reykjavik and continued north-westwards towards the harbour, replete with a giant blue boat with a red hull that is currently undergoing restoration. Around the harbour area itself was a number of small eateries including a burger restaurant on a street that was hilariously called Burgerjoint. There was also quite a few businesses offering whale and puffin watching tours and the like, although most of them were closed on the account it was a Sunday afternoon. I walked down the pier to get a better view of the bay, still awestruck by the dramatic mountains in the backdrop. On the way I spotted a few coastguard vessels and noted where all of the museums were, as this is one of the most popular areas for tourists. The paths here were incredibly slippery however and so it proved quite a challenge to walk. I had hoped to stop for a snack of some pylsur along the way, with the Icelanders being massive fans of the humble hotdog but alas I could not find a suitable eatery serving this so I decided to go for a sit down meal instead at the Icelandic Fish and Chip restaurant as recommended by the guidebook. All of their fish is caught that morning and they batter them lightly before serving them in an array of different methods. They even have chef's recommendations but I opted for battered fish and potatoes (oddly they didn't have chips despite having the word chips in their restaurant name) along with three of their Skyr based sauces - garlic and rosemary, sweet chilli and mango. The former of the three tasted weird but the other two were exemplary, no doubt aided by the fact that they were made from their favourite creamy yoghurt-type substance. Later in the day I had a mango drink made from Skyr which tasted like a mango lassi, only richer and creamier. A definite winner. The restaurant had three different types of fish on the menu and in honour of Wolfie, I decided to try the wolffish, which was very light in texture and complemented the thin batter perfectly. It was a very good meal indeed and on my way out, I decided to take a look at the adjacent Volcano House, which detailed a great deal about volcanoes but not much that as a former geology student I didn't already know.
My plan after this had been to go to the museums and, having read about a museum discount card in my guidebook, I decided to go to the tourist information office to enquire. Once there, I overheard a lady talking about Northern Lights tours and seeing that the day was still clear and it had not clouded up as had been expected, I wondered whether I should opt for a Northern Lights tour too. After all, I was free that evening as Abby couldn't meet me having to cover for a sick colleague at work and upon realising that the weather conditions for viewing would be most favourable on Sunday over any other night of my stay, I decided to head back to my hotel and make a booking post haste. On the way back, I did go up the church tower as I described in my previous post, largely because it was on the way back and I had intended to do it anyway but had gotten distracted by the pretty harbour earlier in the day. Upon arrival back at my hotel, the receptionist, with whom I've gotten quite friendly and chatty, told me that I had arrived back just in time and that she could book me a spot on the 9pm tour. It was 5:30pm so I had a little time to kill so between snoozes (and neglectfully intending but failing to update this journal) I bought a pylsur from a local takeaway which was pleasant enough but was just a cinema hot dog very similar to the ones you get back home. The restaurant was also a video store with casino style slot machines and conveniently around the corner from the hotel but this was the only place in the local area I could get a small snack rather than a big meal, with the earlier fish and chips still filling me up. So I had a largely underwhelming hotdog before having another quick snooze and then congregating with my other tour travellers in the hotel lobby at 8:30pm for the wait for the bus to arrive. It turned up fifteen minutes later.
Undoubtedly we got lucky on Sunday evening. We made a few other stops at hotels to pick people up, followed by a twenty minute hiatus at the main bus terminal, before a large convoy of buses headed away from the city towards Thingvellir National Park to get a look at the Aurora. Due to the previous days' tours being cancelled due to inclement weather, there was a large number on Sunday's tour, 800 people overall spread across sixteen buses. As soon as we had left the city, the lights could be seen, although from the bus it was difficult to see them clearly as the reflection of the bus in the window was far too bright. Wonder turned into frustration as we were told we could not stop on the way to Thingvellir as some of the other buses ahead of us had already had the same idea and had nabbed all the parking spaces. This meant we trundled along for forty-five minute hoping that the phenomenon would keep going for us until we arrived at the visitor centre of the national park. Fortunately it did as when we arrived, we could see a huge expanse of green in the clear night sky along with a swirling band of green which was to stay with us for most of the evening. I walked a little distance from the visitor centre among with about one hundred other people, reaching a promontory over a valley from which to watch the show. The lights were dazzling, awe-inspiring as they swirled and flickered in front of us, my only regret being that I did not have a proper camera on which to record them. Other people's pictures made them look a little more green than what I saw and sadly the main light show was over five minutes after we had arrived but the swirling band was still there, along with a faint greyish tinge in the sky which threatened to get greener but never really did again. We stayed in the car park and the promontory of the visitor centre for a good hour and a half, with the temperature dipping to a nipple freezing -8C as we did. How we longed for a hot drink or some soup which sadly didn't come. Patience is the name of the game when seeing the Northern Lights and so it proved really. Certainly they weren't as striking as those you see on the photographs and sadly the red/pink spectrum was lacking, but the oxygen atoms did us proud with the green even if it was largely faint. However, on the way back to Reykjavik, there was another strong showing and we managed to pull into a country lane, cutting up a photographer as we did. Scrambling out, we did see a strong showing that got progressively greener as it progressed. This continued for about five minutes, dancing in the sky, and was one of those glorious moments in life when you cannot stop smiling. Sadly they faded pretty quickly once more but at least we got to see them - it's not every night you can, through weather or magnetic activity - but at least I gave myself the best shot of seeing them (clear skies, 2014 was the height of an 11-year cycle in solar flare activity boosting your chances of seeing the Northern Lights) and I'm glad that my last minute gamble paid off. They may not have been the brightest - as my trip to the Aurora Museum in the harbour area of Reykjavik on Monday highlighted - but at least I did see them and that's one more thing to tick off my bucket list. On the way back to the city, I was saying the very same thing to the lady sat next to me, who had spent the journey to Thingvellir inexplicably putting on make-up. She turned out to be a nice girl from Madrid who had only just arrived in Iceland and who would be staying here a month. She said there had been some complications with her accommodation but she was hopeful
of getting it sorted, although like me, her main focus that evening was seeing the Northern Lights and getting a warm drink. Sadly the latter never came and as I was dropped off at the hotel I had to say goodbye but seeing her pictures of the evening and chatting with her only emphasised how special our four hour trip had been.
Unlike the hell outside at present, Sunday dawned crisp and sunny, the perfect winter's day in many respects. It was bitterly cold, with temperature failing to surpass freezing, but a brisk walk along the shore soon put that out of my mind, particularly when observing the crystal clear water of the bay and the stunning mountain backdrop, with snowy hills plunging into the azure. Drinking it in, I decided to walk along the coastline to the harbour, stopping every now and again to talk to people, most of whom were tourists. I helped one couple take a picture while I took many pictures of the shiny metallic longboat sculpture which has recently appeared by the shoreline. Moving on, I breathed in the crisp clean Icelandic air and enjoyed the sun shining down on the pristine snow of the mountains, trying to ignore the soiled sludge that the majority of roads and pavements had become. My first destination was the Harpa concert hall and cultural centre. Leading up to it, there's a steaming pathway of water in the middle of which sits a statue of a violinist while inside there's a huge amphitheatre and a handful of shops. This isn't the most striking aspect of the building though, which is the architecture as the exterior of the building is made out of glass cuboid boxes stacked upon each other in a displaced diagonal fashion. This means it captures the light in a myriad of different ways and creates many effects when it's lit up from the interior at nighttime. You can also go into the main concourse and observe these boxes more closely as well as marvelling at the exceptional view of the harbour, the city and the bay that they afford. There are also an array of concave and convex panels within the building which makes it shimmer in an other worldly fashion.
I was enjoying my stroll through Reykjavik and continued north-westwards towards the harbour, replete with a giant blue boat with a red hull that is currently undergoing restoration. Around the harbour area itself was a number of small eateries including a burger restaurant on a street that was hilariously called Burgerjoint. There was also quite a few businesses offering whale and puffin watching tours and the like, although most of them were closed on the account it was a Sunday afternoon. I walked down the pier to get a better view of the bay, still awestruck by the dramatic mountains in the backdrop. On the way I spotted a few coastguard vessels and noted where all of the museums were, as this is one of the most popular areas for tourists. The paths here were incredibly slippery however and so it proved quite a challenge to walk. I had hoped to stop for a snack of some pylsur along the way, with the Icelanders being massive fans of the humble hotdog but alas I could not find a suitable eatery serving this so I decided to go for a sit down meal instead at the Icelandic Fish and Chip restaurant as recommended by the guidebook. All of their fish is caught that morning and they batter them lightly before serving them in an array of different methods. They even have chef's recommendations but I opted for battered fish and potatoes (oddly they didn't have chips despite having the word chips in their restaurant name) along with three of their Skyr based sauces - garlic and rosemary, sweet chilli and mango. The former of the three tasted weird but the other two were exemplary, no doubt aided by the fact that they were made from their favourite creamy yoghurt-type substance. Later in the day I had a mango drink made from Skyr which tasted like a mango lassi, only richer and creamier. A definite winner. The restaurant had three different types of fish on the menu and in honour of Wolfie, I decided to try the wolffish, which was very light in texture and complemented the thin batter perfectly. It was a very good meal indeed and on my way out, I decided to take a look at the adjacent Volcano House, which detailed a great deal about volcanoes but not much that as a former geology student I didn't already know.
My plan after this had been to go to the museums and, having read about a museum discount card in my guidebook, I decided to go to the tourist information office to enquire. Once there, I overheard a lady talking about Northern Lights tours and seeing that the day was still clear and it had not clouded up as had been expected, I wondered whether I should opt for a Northern Lights tour too. After all, I was free that evening as Abby couldn't meet me having to cover for a sick colleague at work and upon realising that the weather conditions for viewing would be most favourable on Sunday over any other night of my stay, I decided to head back to my hotel and make a booking post haste. On the way back, I did go up the church tower as I described in my previous post, largely because it was on the way back and I had intended to do it anyway but had gotten distracted by the pretty harbour earlier in the day. Upon arrival back at my hotel, the receptionist, with whom I've gotten quite friendly and chatty, told me that I had arrived back just in time and that she could book me a spot on the 9pm tour. It was 5:30pm so I had a little time to kill so between snoozes (and neglectfully intending but failing to update this journal) I bought a pylsur from a local takeaway which was pleasant enough but was just a cinema hot dog very similar to the ones you get back home. The restaurant was also a video store with casino style slot machines and conveniently around the corner from the hotel but this was the only place in the local area I could get a small snack rather than a big meal, with the earlier fish and chips still filling me up. So I had a largely underwhelming hotdog before having another quick snooze and then congregating with my other tour travellers in the hotel lobby at 8:30pm for the wait for the bus to arrive. It turned up fifteen minutes later.
Undoubtedly we got lucky on Sunday evening. We made a few other stops at hotels to pick people up, followed by a twenty minute hiatus at the main bus terminal, before a large convoy of buses headed away from the city towards Thingvellir National Park to get a look at the Aurora. Due to the previous days' tours being cancelled due to inclement weather, there was a large number on Sunday's tour, 800 people overall spread across sixteen buses. As soon as we had left the city, the lights could be seen, although from the bus it was difficult to see them clearly as the reflection of the bus in the window was far too bright. Wonder turned into frustration as we were told we could not stop on the way to Thingvellir as some of the other buses ahead of us had already had the same idea and had nabbed all the parking spaces. This meant we trundled along for forty-five minute hoping that the phenomenon would keep going for us until we arrived at the visitor centre of the national park. Fortunately it did as when we arrived, we could see a huge expanse of green in the clear night sky along with a swirling band of green which was to stay with us for most of the evening. I walked a little distance from the visitor centre among with about one hundred other people, reaching a promontory over a valley from which to watch the show. The lights were dazzling, awe-inspiring as they swirled and flickered in front of us, my only regret being that I did not have a proper camera on which to record them. Other people's pictures made them look a little more green than what I saw and sadly the main light show was over five minutes after we had arrived but the swirling band was still there, along with a faint greyish tinge in the sky which threatened to get greener but never really did again. We stayed in the car park and the promontory of the visitor centre for a good hour and a half, with the temperature dipping to a nipple freezing -8C as we did. How we longed for a hot drink or some soup which sadly didn't come. Patience is the name of the game when seeing the Northern Lights and so it proved really. Certainly they weren't as striking as those you see on the photographs and sadly the red/pink spectrum was lacking, but the oxygen atoms did us proud with the green even if it was largely faint. However, on the way back to Reykjavik, there was another strong showing and we managed to pull into a country lane, cutting up a photographer as we did. Scrambling out, we did see a strong showing that got progressively greener as it progressed. This continued for about five minutes, dancing in the sky, and was one of those glorious moments in life when you cannot stop smiling. Sadly they faded pretty quickly once more but at least we got to see them - it's not every night you can, through weather or magnetic activity - but at least I gave myself the best shot of seeing them (clear skies, 2014 was the height of an 11-year cycle in solar flare activity boosting your chances of seeing the Northern Lights) and I'm glad that my last minute gamble paid off. They may not have been the brightest - as my trip to the Aurora Museum in the harbour area of Reykjavik on Monday highlighted - but at least I did see them and that's one more thing to tick off my bucket list. On the way back to the city, I was saying the very same thing to the lady sat next to me, who had spent the journey to Thingvellir inexplicably putting on make-up. She turned out to be a nice girl from Madrid who had only just arrived in Iceland and who would be staying here a month. She said there had been some complications with her accommodation but she was hopeful
of getting it sorted, although like me, her main focus that evening was seeing the Northern Lights and getting a warm drink. Sadly the latter never came and as I was dropped off at the hotel I had to say goodbye but seeing her pictures of the evening and chatting with her only emphasised how special our four hour trip had been.
