Wanderung 25

Bob:

Getting to bed early did in fact help me get up bright and early the next morning, eager to see Akureyi, Iceland, as that was someplace completely new to me. Even though it was shortly before dawn, we could see in the dim gray light that the Crown Princess was already working its way up the long fjord leading to the small city of Akureyi. Before having breakfast we grabbed the camera and GPS, and went topside, which, since we were already on Deck 15, meant just walking up the stairs one more deck to 16. Monika took pictures of the fjord all around us whilst I tried out the GPS. She got some nice pictures and I was happy to find that the GPS had a detailed street map of Akureyi. I had hoped it would as Iceland is technically part of Europe and my Garmin GPS was supposed to have maps for both North America and Europe, but it had not had maps for the Faroe Islands so I was not sure it would have the maps for Iceland.

Monika:

Bob:

Successful in both tasks, we hit the breakfast buffet shortly after it opened at 6:00 a.m. I had a large, protein-rich breakfast as I rather expected to be spending the entire morning walking all around the town, and that turned out to be the case. After the Crown Princess docked around 7:00 a.m., we immediately disembarked and hustled over to the Information Center just down the street from the wharf to check on the local bus service. On the plus side, we found out that the city buses were free and followed rather convoluted paths through the city, which would give us a good look at it. On the minus side, we found that the city bus service did not extend out as far as Lake Myvatn where we had hoped to bath in the thermal springs.

That was disappointing, but the Information Center did have a good street map of Akureyi that we inserted into our clear plastic envelope in front of the cruder, less informative map provided by Princess. With map, compass, and detailed information on the GPS I felt secure in wandering off to town, which we promptly did. We followed the street beside the harbor until we reached a side street leading uphill past the quite modern main church of Akureyi. The clerk at the Information Center had said a Wife hot spot was available in the pedestrian area across from the church and such turned out to be the case. It was a particularly nice spot as it had a comfortable, foam-cushioned bench to sit on whilst checking our email and sending out the obligatory notice to all and sundry that we had made it to this point.

Unfortunately, the bench was surrounded by a concrete bumper for some unknown reason, and not expecting that Monika tripped over it and fell. Once again she fell on her camera, and while not as deadly as falling on one's sword, it did in fact re-injure the same rib she had bruised or cracked a couple months back in a similar fall. Fortunately this fall was much less serious, which was a good thing as getting injured while traveling in foreign lands is always a chancy business.

Monika:

Bob:

Monika was game to continue walking as we had planned, so we walked uphill past the church and turned left to search for the botanical gardens that we had been told were a highlight of the city. Although we bumbled around not finding an entrance to the gardens for a while, the GPS finally led us in past a small hospital to one of the entrances and we began to tour the gardens.

The botanical gardens truly were exceptional, especially considering that they were located not far South of the Arctic Circle! We found pansies, snapdragons, dahlias, dianthus, and many other flowers we could not identify in full bloom. The rhododendron bushes were, however, bloomed out but after all, this was by now early September! We wandered around the intricate set of paths in the several acres of gardens, some of which were graveled and some of which were just set out by a line of stepping stones.

Monika:

Bob:

After finishing the gardens we simply continued walking out along the shore of the fjord, where we finally saw a street sign indicating that "Nonni's House" was just up the road. The port lecturer the previous day had discussed a Jesuit priest named Nonni who had written a very popular set of books for children while living in Akureyri. It turned out that both the house he had lived in as well as the small church he had served in were preserved on the museum grounds.

Although the furnishings were just of the appropriate late 1800s styles rather than being Father Nonni's actual possessions, his house seemed to be set up exactly as it would have been while he was living here and it was interesting to see that. I was particularly entranced by the slide-out beds that were the 1800s equivalent of a Hide-A-Bed or a sleep sofa today. Those beds simply had a sliding side section that could be slid together for a single-width bed, which saved space in the small rooms, or pulled out for more sleeping space and capacity in the evenings. Ingenious!

After taking a quick peek into the small, simple church where Father Nonni worked, we saw some brass cannons in the courtyard next door and were mightily puzzled by that. I mean, you don't generally see canons in juxtaposition to a church, after all. As it turned out the canons were part of a completely different museum for the city of Akureyri that was a short distance back uphill from the Nonni House museum.

Monika:

Bob:

Climbing up to the Akureyri museum, we paid our $3 admission fee and started perusing the exhibits. The exhibits in the two main rooms were both in Icelandic and English, but the exhibits in a smaller set of rooms, possibly a temporary exhibit on the crafts, were in Icelandic only. That made it impossible for us to understand the details of the craftwork, but we did enjoy the quality of the three-dimensional wood carvings and other artwork.

The main exhibit rooms traced the history of the Akureyri area from the time of Viking settlement at 800-900 A.D. to the present. Living this close to the Arctic Circle on a newly-formed volcanic island was a rough go for the Vikings and their descendants, to say the least, but they did survive and ultimately flourish. The displays included a boat-burial from the very early period, which had the bones of a man, his dog, and even a horse carefully interred with him!

Most of the displays, however, concentrated on the more recent centuries. I enjoyed the exhibits on everyday life in the 1800s and 1900s including such mundane things as washing machines, bicycles, school desks, and even the instruments and uniform for a brass band! The houses built of sod were a bit surprising, but not entirely so to me as I was acquainted with the sod shanty as also being a type of primitive residence in the American West during the early years of its settlement. That happened in both places for many of the same reasons, namely that trees were scarce or non-existent whereas sod was plentiful, easily cut into bricks for construction, and provided good protection against harsh winter weather.

Monika:

Bob:

Descending the hill from the museum, we continued on out to a curious building Monika had spotted. We finally puzzled out that it was an ice-skating rink, and a really large one, but they didn't have anything as obvious to mark the building as the huge bowling pins that had marked the bowling alley we saw on the way out! We curled back into town along the shoreline road and held to it until we arrived again at the central pedestrian plaza in the middle of town. There we stopped briefly to re-check our email and then wandered around the central business district to check out all the various stores and shops. I was intrigued by two motor scooters that were clearly to rent ("puffinscooters" was the web site), but I could not find anyone to talk to or any other information about it. As we had less than an hour to the ship's departure, it was a moot point anyway, but taking a scooter around Iceland sounds like fun to me and given the high gasoline prices (we converted the prices to be $9 or more per U.S. gallon) it would more economical than a car.

Gasoline was not the only thing that was sky-high. We found that, in general, prices were prohibitively high, maybe three or four times what one would pay for the comparable item back in the U.S. Such high prices generally inhibit us from purchasing anything unless we really LIKE it or NEED it.

Monika:

Bob:

In this case, nothing met those criteria, so we gradually worked our way back to the ship where we had a belated lunch and put our feet up for the rest of the afternoon. Although we had avoided any real rain for the entire day, the clouds gradually lowered as we sailed back North out of the fjord and finally the fog closed in so much that the Crown Princess was sounding its fog horn every couple of minutes.

Once outside the fjord leading to Akureyi, the fog lifted just enough that the Captain stopped blowing the foghorn, but the sea got considerably rougher while we were having dinner. After dinner it became worse and finally, for the first time in her life, Monika became pale and a bit queasy. I hesitate to call it "seasickness" because it was over almost as soon as it had begun and she slept the rest of the night quietly and uneventfully. The ship yawed rather suddenly, violently and unexpectedly a couple of times and once I was banged into the wall whilst walking to our bathroom . Since I had to hold on to avoid falling inside the bathroom, I decided to forgo my evening shower but was otherwise unscathed.

Monika: