Trip to Iceland - 1

Hi, My wife and I returned from Iceland on Tuesday 12/11 after spending four nights and five days there.  We began our trip on 12/6 with a flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Keflavik Airport about 45 minutes from Iceland's main city and capital, Reykavik.

Upon our arrival we checked into our hotel, had breakfast and took a nap.  On waking up about 12:30 PM we got our act together and headed downtown.  The hotel provided free tickets for the local transit buses.

One of the first things we spotted was this chopper practicing rescues over the harbor.
 

 

We then continued along the main shopping street.  Off the street was a play area for children.  The walls of the surrounding buildings were covered with graffiti.

Street decoration provided a nice frame for a modern church on a hill.

This statue was outside a jewelry store.

Another jewelry store had some interesting displays in its window, including this reindeer.

The next day we flew up north, to the town of Akuryeri, landing about 9:40 AM.  Our aircraft is shown below.  Dawn begins about 10:30 AM in these latitudes and dusk is about 3:30 PM.  When the sun does shine, it is low in the southern sky.  However, it was cloudy during most of our stay in Iceland.

After checking into our hotel we set out for a walk around town.  Our hotel was up a hill from the main part of town and this church was photographed on the way down,

as was this large fishing trawler.  It did not move during the 2 days we spent in town.

My wife, Ruthe, was very interested in seeing and photographing some of the older homes so we headed in that direction.

The streets and sidewalks were mostly snow covered with ice underneath.  Some walks were treated with cinders.  Fortunately, neither of us fell.

When originally constructed the porch here was part of the pavement along the waterfront as the the water in the fjord on which Akuryeri is located came up to where the sign is in the picture.

On our return to the main part of town we heard singing and quickly spotted these three Santas singing Christmas Carols in Icelandic on a balcony.

That evening we went out looking for the Northern Lights.  While we did not see them, I was able to photograph this very picturesque church.

We spent the entire next day on a tour of the local area.  Our first stop was Godafoss Falls.  The ground here was particularly treacherous as under a very thin layer of snow was ice.

Looking down river on the left is a local restaurant and souvenir shop we went to next.

From the falls we journied to Lake Myvatn and circled the lake.  Because there were only six of us in the van we were able to stop wherever we desired for photos.

I'll cover the remainder of the trip in the next post.  Thanks for looking.