The weather kept deteriorating. Every evening we went to bed hoped that in the morning
the conditions would improve only to wake up and immediately start
longing for yesterday's weather. Wednesday was our low point.
We checked out of the hotel at Lake Myvatn and with windshield wipers
operating at full steam headed for Husavik, our next stop.
We reached Husavik around 10am and since it was still raining hard, we decided
to continue north for a bit foolishly hoping that the rain might wear itself out.
But there was no sign of hope in the skies,
nor anywhere else for that matter,
so we stopped and returned back to town. Since Husavik lies just north
of the 66th parallel, this stop was the northernmost point of our journey.
I guess when you are that close to the Arctic circle you can't really expect
the French Riviera weather.
Husavik is a small town at the shoulder of the Tjoernes peninsula...
...with a small but very picturesque harbor
(this is the front view of the same houses).
On a sunny day there are many whale watching expeditions dispatched from this harbor.
But sunny days - much like whales - are kind of endangered species in these waters.
Fortunately the harbor area was also home to a Whale Museum with lots
of exhibits documenting life of these marine mammals...
...as well as the history of commercial whaling. Another rather welcome feature
of this museum was that it did not rain there.
That itself was worth the entrance fee.
Kudos to Husavik's skillful roof engineers!
The town had another attraction just one block north from the harbor:
the Icelandic Phallological Museum,
which atempted to collect penises from all mammals in Iceland. According
to the guide, "it houses 276 specimens displayed like hunting trophies,
embalmed in formaldehyde or dried in display cases"
(the guide did not mention whether "homo sapiens"
was included on the list of local mammals).
The museum was closed in the morning and
we did not have time to wait for it to open,
but the very existence of this venerable institution shows that
the entertainment options during long polar nights were rather limited.
As we were driving back south to reconnect with the Ring Road,
there was a definite increase in the number of farms
and the land looked a bit more fertile than it did around Lake Myvatn.
Although with the seemingly permanent precipitation,
what kind of crops could be grown here? Rainmelons? Hydroponic potatoes?
I would not be surprised if a dryer was considered a farm implement around here.
Waterfalls are Nature's way of filibustering gravity.
This is Godafoss, one of Iceland's lesser known waterfalls.
Around 1pm we arrived in Akureyri, a fishing and trading post at the bottom
of Eyjafjordur (the longest fjord in Iceland).
Being the third largest proper city with the population of 17000,
Akureyri is the unofficial capital of northern Iceland.
The weather has not improved a single bit,
so as soon as we dumped our bags in the hotel
we made a beeline for the museum district Listagil
(the receptionists at the hotel told us
that this amount of rain was unusual even for this season -
which was rainy to begin with)
The city museum had a rather persuasive burglar alarm system,
which made us reevaluate our plans for getting rich quick by swiping some
old Viking relics and selling them on the black market.
Inside the museum we found a series of exhibitions documenting life in this
community since the early fishing settlements...
...all the way up to the early 20th century.
We then returned to hotel, parked the car and despite the continued
drizzle decided to do some sightseeing on foot.
Icelanders are definitely into fitness and healthy lifestyle.
Most towns we saw would have a well equipped
sport complex often accompanied by multiple soccer fields
and a swimming pool. We also noticed that a huge number of private homes
had a trampoline in their backyard. I guess living on an island
with so many active volcanos makes the population rather jumpy.
To keep the soul as fit as the body,
the Akureyri main church was just two blocks away from the sports center.
Then we passed through a small residential area to get to the downtown
(if the town of 17,000 is even allowed to have a downtown).
The information center was located in the Culture House Hof...
...which also served as a home for North Iceland Symphony Orchestra and a place
for musical instruction. The building's interior projected simplicity and style
and if you walked around it for a while, you were bound to find
a hidden gem or two.
The town's movie theater was just across the street.
This is Akureyri's main square with Landsbanki, one of the institutions
implicated in the financial collapse 3 years ago. If you turn around at
this spot...
...you walk right into the main street
with all the attendant boutiques, souvenir shops...
...and a bookstore at the end.
I bet you 3 packets of rigatoni that this is the northernmost Italian restaurant
on the whole planet.
The botanical garden Lystigardurinn (opened in 1912)
started as a collection of trees at first
but now includes most of native Icelandic plants.
The garden has many quiet retreats, including one with a
wooden bridge,
vaguely reminiscent of a similar place in Reykjavik.
Can you guess what this building is?
(answer at the bottom)
We had a dinner at a Thai restaurant not far from the movie theater
and when we got out, we noticed one redeeming quality of darkness.
Night mercifully covered the relentlessly gray sky. The rain no longer mattered.
The main street looked more attractive in its black night cocktail dress, too...
...and the cathedral was like a jewel on a dark blue velvet cushion.
You won't find many traffic lights outside of Reykjavik.
So wherever they occurred, I considered them a major tourist attraction.
This one sported a slightly bluish tone of green evocative of
thermal pools at Lake Myvatn,
a capricious hue of orange that would make every Dutch heart shiver with joy,
and last but not least an absolutely breath
stopping variety of crimson, a color well worth waiting
for if you ever got to this intersection.
answer: the building belongs to a High School - Akureyri Junior College to be exact - and it is called Gamli Skoli (old school)
