Unexpected Journeys

 A few detours today, thrown off course once or twice, but plenty of discoveries and reacquaintances en route. A nod to Tolkien in the title of today’s blog as much of his middle earth language and troll characters influenced by Icelandic apparently, as he had an Icelandic au pair, although never visited the country.  I’d venture to suggest he also was never forced to take the M49 as a detour or have to come off the M4 to reach Heathrow via Basingstoke and the M3 as we needed to in the middle of the night. 

Was great to get into Terminal 5 and much to Chrissis satisfaction it was a Wetherspoons breakfast and Bloody Mary. Is all about embracing new cultures on this travel lark, but also satisfying old traditions.

Was all about those familiar traditions mixed with a lot of COVID mask wearing.  Even though we still remained loyal to BA it was a no frills affair and 3 hrs of in flight mask wearing no picnic I can tell you. Shame we didn’t bring a picnic as that would have allowed us to take them off.  One of many elements that  did make you question exactly how safe it all was! All huddled up in non social distancing seats but then told to keep 2m apart as you walked down the aisle to disembark!

It was actually as we descended into Iceland that things began to really feel like travelling. Have missed that feeling of awe as we see a new land mass emerge from the clouds and we evaluate the topography and technology that is in front of us.

Suitably excited to be amongst the travel world again we did a bit of livery spotting at Keflavik airport. Three delta planes shows the enormous US influence on this place. Disembarked and took our first stroll through the arrivals experience in a long while. Immigration straight forward, got slightly distracted by Duty free and wanting to stockpile a few drinks in case of exorbitant bar bills. Suitcases were last off the baggage collection, then it was a myriad of checks of our health documents all prepped before arrival. As it turned out they were only interested in our evidence of pre registration and vaccines. The lateral flow certificate not consulted so that’s £70 we could have saved.

 

Our transfer gray line collected us at arrivals for the 40 minute drive into the capital Reykjavik. The landscape we negotiated very cindery and lunar. The weather very grey in this most northerly capital in the world. Our hotel well positioned in the old harbour and as expected an incredibly quirky place, so many little cubby holes and features we can share over coming days. We have made a great choice.

Our next journey of the day took us for a stroll around the old harbour. Many whale and puffin watching expeditions departing and some lovely waterside eateries. The puffins have almost all gone it turns out, maybe they knew I was coming. We took a window seat at one of the rustic waterside restaurants and I had a cheese platter with a beer. The seaweed accompaniment with a touch of vinegar very nice. Chrissi had the red pepper soup.

Next up, after planning and slightly messing up on booking a trip to the blue lagoon tomorrow, was a quick change and walk across town, 15 mins, to a recommended spa pool that was more municipal. Chrissi had researched well across several Icelandic sources but sadly did not clock the Icelandic of closed for maintenance until we arrived. Still, we made the best of it, saw a little more coastline and an Icelandic housing estate.

Felling a little weary and still only mid afternoon had a snooze at the hotel before heading out for the evening. Stopped for a beer harbour side and then took the short walk into the city centre, meandering upwards a bit via bars and lots of shops and features that added to the mildly eccentric feel to this small but still capital of cities. We had tried to book into the amusingly named Bastard bar before embarking on our walk but was full. Having rocked up in person they recognised a fellow bastard and gave us a table outside.  It was the home grown brewery element that mainly appealed, the bar though busy with local after workers. I had 2 glasses of the very fruity hazy bastard, chrissi had one of those and an amber bastard. She is obviously more Newport than I thought. We did eat too, a couple of large side orders of  crispy prawns with wasabi peas and some delicious nachos with spicy cheese. Maybe the beer is food mantra took hold but we were full enough after that and enjoyed people watching and bantering with the kids and others back home on social media. Even the chain smoker on the table next to us didn’t bother after a while, the smoky bastard.

We then walked back down through town, a lovely buzz but not a throng. Found a small restaurant where we had our dessert of cake and coffee to finish off the evening before the short walk back to our cosy hotel.  Splitting our evening meal across a couple of establishments unusual but just felt right in this wonderful little place.