Sunday, August 1
We encountered another lovely day; some clouds in the sky but plenty of sun! We had a relatively short drive ahead of us, with plenty of time to explore.
First stop was another…surprise…waterfall! But this was a good one: Godafoss.
It isn‘t called „God‘s Falls“ by accident. One of the early law speakers had been converted to Christianity and decided to make it the national religion. Once the decision had been ratified by the assembly at Thingvellir, the speaker returned to his lands and threw his pagan idols into the waterfall. Or so they say.
It was then a short drive to Akureyri, Iceland‘s second city (insofar as a population of 18,000 counts as a city). Diminutive it may be, but the town does have a certain urban flair, the kind that you find 40 miles from the Arctic Circle. There is a nice pedestrian area with lots of cafes, bars, and restaurants (this was Sunday morning; it got livelier as the day went on.
It has its own rather impressive little university; this is the original building. Like many Icelandic buildings, it was built in Norway, shipped, and put together and decorated on site.
There is some lovely residential architecture on the hill up to the Botanical Garden.
And then there’s the Botanical Garden itself, which Sue pronounced exceptional. The highlight for me was a bed with plants that grow only in Iceland…or high in the Himalayas.
We closed our tour with a cup of coffee and a piece of cake at the really exceptionally beautiful coffee house.
As you can tell, we were really taken with the little burg. And the Botanical Garden was the first chapter in our day‘s return to human culture.
The road north from Akureyri runs along the eastern side of the mountainous Tröllaskagi Peninsula that sits between two massive fjords. Although there were some nice views up the Eyja fjord, much of this journey was spent in a series of tunnels. The oldest one of these is one lane, and we were going the „wrong“ way, so that we had to pull over into a pullout every time we saw headlights. We popped out of the final tunnel to find the little town of Siglufjör∂ur at our feet.
This is now a charming little port that relies on tourism and, get this, biotech.
There are now about 3000 residents, but until about 1960 it was the herring capital of the world. Hundreds of boats fished the herring shoals along Iceland‘s north coast. Here is a historical photo of the harbor in the early 20th century.
The town‘s pride and joy is nothing other than a Herring Museum. And who would have thought that a museum could make herring fishing so interesting. But this award winning museum, which has preserved four of the original structures (including a salting plant and a factory for producing fish oil and fish meal) and added a splendid building to display old boats, was really beautifully done.
We were staying at our „splurge“ hotel for the trip, a really lovely place right on the harbor, the Hotel Siglo. I would put it on your list for your next Iceland trip. If you’ve watched any of “Trapped,” then our hotel, and even our room with its balcony, is in every other shot.