Voyage of the Vikings Redux – Reyjavik, Iceland Day 1

Cruise Day 25

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

We made an overnight sailing from Djúpivogur down and across the southern coast of Iceland to the southwest corner and the capital city of Reykjavik.  We will be in Reykjavik overnight the same as we did in 2016 with one major change; surprisingly we will be tendering in.  Reykjavik is a deep-water port so usually we would be docking, but this time there will be five ships in port today and for various reasons, we got the short straw and will be tendering, very disappointing.  Here are links to the blog for our stay in Reykjavik for day 1 and day 2 from our previous  trip.

We sailed from west along the southern coast from Djupivogur to Reykjavik.

A map of Reykjavik.  The tender dock is where the starred red marker is in the upper part of the map.

Because it was a pretty long sail from Djupivogur to Reykjavik, we didn’t arrive until 11:00 AM.  That gave us an opportunity to sleep in and give Val a little extra rest.  When she woke up she was feeling nearly normal, and that is very good news.  The news wasn’t so good outside though, as there were heavy clouds and a possible chance of rain, but at least the temperature was pretty mild in the mid 50’s.

It was very cloudy and rainy as we sailed into Reykjavik.

Reykjavik

Where those ships are is where we would normally dock, but instead we will be tendering in to a dock in the area in the middle of the picture behind the docked ship.

Today we have a ship excursion called “Easy Reykjavik” that leaves at noon and is only three and a half hours long.  We met in the World Stage at around 11:30 but didn’t get sent to the tenders until after noon.  It was a bit hectic as there were many tours leaving around the same time.  We finally made it to shore and to our bus and were on our way before 1:00 PM.

As I explained in an earlier post, we had just cancelled a long tour and booked this one because of an early tour tomorrow.  In our previous visit we had gone out of town on both days and didn’t really get to see much of Reykjavik so we thought this would give us an opportunity to do that.  We drove through the city with our guide (more on our guide later) pointing out sights and landmarks along the way.  Our first stop was Árbæjarsafn, an open-air museum showing the way people lived during various time periods in Iceland.  There was a tour guide provided by the museum that led us around and explained the different eras we were seeing.  We enjoyed our visit and learned some more about Icelandic history.

The first area we visited from relatively newer settlements, probably from the late 1800's into the early 1900's.  There were a lot of kids here today so it must be a school outing or holiday.

This had nothing to do with the museum, but I thought it was interesting to have the goats grazing with the city in the background.

From the newer dwelling we went to the area with old buildings.  Try pronouncing this road sign.

An old church.

Due to the volcanic nature of Iceland, they have an abundance of geothermal activity and use the super heated steam to provide both heat (over 90% of the homes in the country) and generate most of the electricity.  As we drove through undeveloped areas we could see large pipelines everywhere that carry the hot water to the towns and cities and into the homes and businesses.

Our next stop on the tour was the Perlan Wonders of Iceland, a natural history museum sitting atop a hill overlooking Reykjavik.  Our guide told us it was a powerhouse where electricity was once generated and hot water distributed from, but we saw no sign of that and I can’t find any evidence of that doing some Google searches. 

It was very interesting, and we spent quite a bit of time there.  We only got to see a portion of the museum as our tour didn’t include tickets to all the exhibits.  After going through the museum, we took the elevator up to the 4^th level where there was an observation deck completely circling the outside of the building with panoramic views of Reykjavik and beyond.  We did feel a few drops of rain while we were outside, but nothing really developed, and our luck held.

Views of Reykjavik and the surrounding area from the observation deck.

That's our ship anchored in the harbor.

 

Val took this panorama with her phone.

On the same level as the observation deck there was food available, so since Val and I had missed lunch, we got a snack and something to drink to tide us over.  By the time we finished, it was time to head back to the bus.

Our next stop was supposed to be a visit to an old Icelandic Lutheran Church that is a landmark and visible from the harbor, but for some reason the bus was unable to park there so we just continued our tour of the city until it was time to return to the ship.

We have mixed feelings about this tour as the two places we visited were quite interesting, but our guide was one of the worst we’ve ever had.  He was quite old and seemed confused at times and struggled with his English.  He repeated things and was very vague in his descriptions.  He would say such and such is up ahead, but of course, except for those in the front seats of the bus, no one could see what he was talking about and by the time it was beside us, he was already talking about something else ahead.

One of the important things a guide has to do is keep track of the people they are guiding.  At the beginning, they count heads to make sure that the number matches their list.  Then at every stop before the bus moves on, they recount to make sure everyone was there.  Our guide became confused doing this and at one stop even told the driver to leave before everyone was aboard.  It was only because everyone started shouting that the bus stopped and waited.  After that, the bus driver did the counting even though it’s not really his job. 

One last thing, when returning to the port, he actually delivered us to the wrong spot and told us to go through the terminal that was being used for another ship.  The tenders were nearby, but it confused some of the people and we had a longer walk to make.

We actually felt sorry for the guide as we speculated that because of the heavy tourism in Iceland and especially since there were five ships in port today, he was brought out of retirement to fill a shortage of guides.  Anyway, it was a little annoying, but we had a good time, and no harm was done.

Update: I’m writing this the day after this tour.  Evidently, a number of people complained, and we received a letter today apologizing for the difficulties on the tour and saying they are refunding half the cost of the tour.  We didn’t think it was that bad, but that is a nice thing for Holland America to do.  Now back to yesterday’s post.

It was around 5:00 when we got back and after getting settled back in, we relaxed until dinner.  It was dinner as usual, but no casino tonight as we are in port overnight and the casino is closed.  That is a good thing though, as we have a very early tour tomorrow so after dinner we went back to our room and were in bed before ten.

This was taken from near the tender dock.

These last two photos were taken from the ship.  Here a tender is heading to the tender dock.