Category Archives: Activities

Things we have done during our travels.

And Even More on Reykjavík, Iceland

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Monday, May 18 – The plan for today was to rent a car and drive to some of the famous sites to the south of Reykjavík. We left the hotel at 0750 and walked back to Baka Baka for breakfast. We made a point of taking some of the streets that we’d missed yesterday on the self-guided walking tour. Most of the streets we walked down today were residential and most of the homes were charming, similar to the homes in the previous posts about downtown. We did pass a Catholic Cathedral. The pretty building behind it looked like it may have been a school, and we weren’t sure if it was part of the church.

Near the cathedral were a couple of blocky, higher density buildings.

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Part 2 of The Walking Tour of Downtown Reykjavík, Iceland and The Lava Show

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continued… we continued back down the hill towards the park with the lake. Close to the church, it was primarily colorful row homes. We weren’t sure if they were large single family homes or multifamily homes.

Within a couple of blocks, we came to the swankier part of town, with larger single family residences on large lots with big yards.

As we neared the park, the houses became more fancy.

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Part 1: Walking Tour of Downtown Reykjavík, Iceland

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Sunday, May 17 — Since arriving in Iceland, we haven’t been sleeping well. It didn’t get dark until around midnight, and it got light again at 0300. While the hotel did have blackout curtains, the curtains exactly fit the inside of the windows — which meant there was a ring of light all the way around the perimeter of the window. We’ve been having a hard time falling asleep/staying asleep while it was still light out.

This morning, no one was in a hurry to get moving. Eric and Keith went to the spa for a short while. We finally headed out at 1045. We waked back downtown, taking different streets that were closer to the waterfront. Check out this cool ship that we got a glimpse of.

While there were still plenty of adorable buildings on our route, we found these streets less charming since they had quite a lot of modern, blocky buildings. One of the things that we were really excited about was that the leaves had begun to come out the trees. We’ve never seen spring happen in real time before. We marveled that the trees had been barren on Wednesday, and,only four days later were full of new life.

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The Lava Tunnel Tour Part 2, Raufarhólshellir, Iceland

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continued… We came to another staircase, this one leading to a much wider platform where it was easy for us to gather around Dimitri. He pulled out a flashlight and started explaining the various features of the cave. He showed us the cooling pattern of the outer crust on the ceiling. Once again, we were glad we’d seen The Lava Show so we already understood the concept.

He explained the various colors. Red was the primary, from the high iron content — the red was literally rust. There was also quite a bit of yellow from the sulphur. And, near the skylights, there was quite a bit of green from the moss that grew around the skylight. 

He turned out the lights and it was pitch black. He turned the lights on after a few minutes of darkness and we saw glittering white. Dimitri explained that it was bacteria, and that would vanish quickly now that the lights were on again. He said the bacteria was thousands of years old, hydrophobic and didn’t need light. We thought it was weird how it hid in the light and reappeared in the dark.

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The Lava Tunnel Tour Part 1, Raufarhólshellir, Iceland

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Saturday, May 16, 2026 — Eric left for the conference at 0930. Since Christi and Keith’s tour wasn’t until 1230, we had a leisurely morning in the hotel room. We were still feeling tired from jet lag, and relished having some down time.

We headed out at 1100. The first item on the to-do list was to scope out the bus stop where we were being picked up. It was in front of the Maritime Museum. We decided to go back to the Food Hall for lunch. Inside the Food Hall, we opted to eat at the same restaurant since the food had been so good. Christi ordered a lamb kebab, which wasn’t all that different from the salad she’d gotten the other day, though she liked the bacon more than the lamb. Keith got a lamb burger with lamb bacon and he said it was wonderful. 

We finished eating a little before noon. The bus pickup wasn’t until 1230. On our way to the Lava Show, we’d passed a grocery store. We knew was only a block away, so we went to the grocery store to find some dessert.

The packaging on all the foods in the bakery section were in Icelandic, so we weren’t exactly sure what the choices were. We picked out a cheerful package of yellow and pink circles. They turned out to be mini-cupcakes with strawberry frosting and were delicious.

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