Voyage of the Vikings Redux – Akureyri, Iceland

Cruise Day 14

Friday, August 4, 2023

We are in Akureyri, Iceland today which is the capital and largest city of Northern Iceland.  It has a population of around 20,000 which is quite large compared to the other towns in the area.  This is another port we visited in 2016 that is linked to here.

Akureyri is the red marker on the far left.

We were docked by 7:00 AM and because Val and I had a tour booked for 8:30, we were up at seven.  Thankfully this is not a tender port, and we are docked so it makes getting off the ship much easier.  Val booked a private tour for today that we are sharing with Carl and Aileen, a couple Val had found on the Cruise Critic Roll Call.  After getting ready and a quick breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we got off the ship at 8:15.  The weather was cool and overcast, but the prediction was for temperatures in the high 50’s F.

Views from our balcony.

After getting off the ship, Val waited at the gangway for Carl and Aileen while I went off to find our guide.  Just as I got to the parking area, I saw a white Land Cruiser pull up that was our guide, Gertrude, arriving.  I introduced myself to Gertrude and started back to get Val and saw that she, Carl and Aileen were coming my way.

Aileen is in a wheelchair, but she can walk short distances and the Land Cruiser had enough room to put the wheelchair in the back, so it worked out well.  We had told the tour operator about the wheelchair, and he said it wouldn’t be a problem, but he had failed to let the guide know and it caught her by surprise, but she quickly rearranged things and we were on our way.  

The tour is called “The Arctic Coastline and Troll Peninsula”.  Last time we visited Akureyri we saw most of the major waterfalls and scenic features, so we wanted to visit more out of the way and less visited places this time.  The Icelandic name for the peninsula is Trollaskagi that literally means peninsula of the troll so hence the name, the Troll Peninsula.  You can take a loop road all the way around the peninsula, but today we are only going to be on east side.  We will follow the coast of the Eyjafjörður Fjord to the town of Siglufjordur that is at northern the end of the Troll Peninsula.

Our tour today will take us all the way from Akureyri (at the bottom) to Siglufjordur at the northern end of the Troll Peninsula.

Our first stop on our drive up the Troll Peninsula was the small fishing village of Hjalteyri.  Hjalteyri was once a hub of the herring fishing industry, until the herring were over-fished.  It now has a population of only 43.  The large herring factory is now closed and is used for art galleries and exhibitions.  Diving is also very popular in the area and we saw a least one dive shop.

These are some of the old fish drying racks.

It was interesting to walk around the old herring factory.  Val and Carl are walking ahead.

The village of Hjalteyri.

We walked around the small harbor.

The structure that looked like a boat is actually a spa.

Next, we made a stop near the town of Árskógssandur for some scenic views and saw a sign for a beer spa, yes a beer spa.  You can spend a relaxing time drinking beer brewed at a nearby brewery while soaking in a tub of beer at the Bjórböðin Beer Spa.  Interesting.

You can't see the sign in this photo, but this is the beer spa.

From there we drove on to the town of Ólafsfjörður to visit a black sand beach.  We didn't spend any time in the town, but the views from the beach were beautiful.

We saw a lot of these old fish drying racks today.

Val and Carl

The town of Ólafsfjörður

Our next stop was Siglufjörður, the northern most spot we would visit today, but before we get there I have to mention the tunnels.  Iceland is a very rugged and mountainous country and the coastlines are not at all straight so road building can be difficult and the routes are often not very direct.  This can be very isolating for communities so Iceland has built tunnels that cut through the mountain saving hours of driving time.  

There are eleven tunnels built so far and two of them are between Ólafsfjörður and Siglufjörður.  There is a southern and northern tunnel collectively called the Héðinsfjarðargöng.  The longest tunnel is the southern tunnel that is 4.3 miles long while the northern one is 2.3 miles long.  These are one lane tunnels and are a little unnerving if you are not used to them.  There are turnouts for northbound traffic so if you see car lights ahead you have to pull over into the next turnout to let the southbound traffic pass.  Gertrude is used to this and drove through expertly, but I wonder what happens when tourists find themselves driving through these.  All in all, we drove through four tunnels today, but only these two were single lane; all the newer tunnels built are two lane.

Here is a short description of Siglufjörður from Google: "Siglufjörður is a small fishing town in a narrow fjord with the same name as the northern coast of Iceland. The population in 2011 was 1,206; the town has been shrinking in size since the 1950s when the town reached its peak of 3,000 inhabitants".  Siglufjörður was the herring fishing capital of the Atlantic during her heyday, but the area was over fished and the herring disappeared and the town started to decline.  The town is still dependent on fishing, but they are looking to tourism to improve their economy.

I was very excited to be able to visit Siglufjörður as I have read Ragnar Jónasson’s “Dark Iceland" series of six mystery books that are set in Siglufjörður.  When reading the books, the setting seemed so remote and mysterious, I never thought I would be visiting the area and in fact, I didn't even know Siglufjörður was an actual place and now here I am!

Because the herring industry was so important to Siglufjörður, they have a museum dedicated to that.  There were three buildings to visit and it was really quite interesting, and we spent quite a while going through them.

The area of Siglufjörður near the museum.

The red building is one of the museum buildings.

 

Another of the museum buildings. This one housed several of the old herring fishing boats.

After visiting the museum, we walked across the street and explored the harbor area.

This was once part of the herring processing plant, but has been rebuilt into a hotel.

This is a sculpture celebrating the contribution of the "herring girls" in the heyday of the herring industry.  When the herring boat came in and unloaded their catches, the "herring girls" took over and processed the herring and loaded them into barrels.  They were paid by the barrel and worked until the herring were all processed no matter how long it took, a very grueling job.  There were pictures in the museum of the docks with barrels of herring on them and there were literally thousands of barrels.

We were all getting hungry and discussing where to eat when the discussion got around to the surprising popularity of Icelandic hot dogs with tourists.  Hot dogs are a guilty pleasure of Val and mine, so we said, let's go have an Icelandic hot dog and every one agreed and that's what we had for lunch. Because our guide was a local she knew right where to go. The hot dogs are similar to our hot dogs, but they are made of lamb and they were very good.

This was the sign in the hot dog place advertising a hot dog and a bottle of Coke (or Diet Coke) for 699 Icelandic Kronas.  That was about five US dollars which was a shockingly low price for Iceland.  On our last visit, we paid $25 for a ham and cheese sandwich and a soft drink.

Not a very flattering picture of me, but I was enjoying my Icelandic hot dog.

After lunch we made a quick stop near an old herring factory that had an old herring boat by the road.

Before we left Siglufjörður, Gertrude took us to a sculpture made out knives that paid homage to the herring industry.  It was a structure that looked like herring shimmering in the water as they swam, but when we got closer we saw it was dinner knives strung up on strings. It was very effective and you could see exactly what the artist was trying to do.  We took some pictures, but they don't convey what it looked like when you stand there and look at it.

 

This is our guide, Gertrude.  During our tour today, we had gotten to know her and she had mentioned that she loved to sing and was a member of several singing groups.  While we were standing by the sculpture she asked us if we wanted to hear a traditional Icelandic folk song.  Of course, we all did and she proceeded to stand there and sing one.  She really was a good singer and we really enjoyed her song.

By this time is was getting to be mid afternoon and we had to start the drive back to Akureyri, but we made one more stop as we exited the second tunnel between Siglufjörður and Ólafsfjörður.

The exit (or entrance depending on your direction) of the tunnel.

On our previous visit, and on this one, we hadn’t seen much of the town of Akureyri except for a quick drive through it so when we returned to the ship, Gertrude took us on a tour Akureyri.  She showed us the newer part where there was a lot of activity going on with lots of our fellow ship passengers walking around and then went into the old part with very old, but very well-maintained homes.  It was an interesting tour and we got a much better look at what life in Akureyri was like.

Gertrude also showed us where she lived, which was on the hillside across the bay from where the ship was docked.  It was a beautiful home with a wonderful view.  Her husband came out and chatted with us for a bit and then it was time to head for the ship.

Gertrude had one more surprise for us before we returned to the ship.  She drove us into the harbor area where she had a friend who had a business smoking salmon and selling it.  We were given samples of the freshly smoked salmon and it was delicious, what a treat!

Some of the salmon drying in Gertrude's friend's shop.  He gave us some samples and it was delicious.

After that we returned to the ship; what a great day we had.  Gertrude was a wonderful guide and we enjoyed hearing her stories and getting to know her as she showed us the area that she obviously loved.  She also was wonderful in accommodating Aileen all day, making sure she saw the sights and assisting her in walking or pushing her wheelchair over the longer distances.  I would highly recommend Gertrude and Star Travel for anyone visiting Akureyri.

We were back on the ship about fifteen minutes before the all aboard time, so we had made a full day of it.  The ship sailed away at 4:00 PM and it was very scenic, but the weather had cooled and there was a stiff wind blowing which made it too cold for us as we didn’t feel like getting all bundled up to stand outside.  I did grab a few pictures, but we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing until it was time for dinner.

We had another good dinner and then on to the casino where Val’s birthday luck ran out and we both lost our gambling allotment for the night.  We lose another hour of sleep tonight, so we went straight back to the room and to bed as we had an early morning this morning and were tired.  Tomorrow is a sea day so we can catch up on our sleep.