{"id":25992,"date":"2026-10-28T12:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/?p=25992"},"modified":"2026-10-28T12:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:07:52","slug":"and-even-more-on-reykjavik-iceland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/2026\/10\/28\/and-even-more-on-reykjavik-iceland\/","title":{"rendered":"And Even More on Reykjav\u00edk, Iceland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Monday, May 18 \u2013 The plan for today was to rent a car and drive to some of the famous sites to the south of Reykjav\u00edk. We left the hotel at 0750 and walked back to Baka Baka<\/a> for breakfast. We made a point of taking some of the streets that we’d missed yesterda<\/a>y on the self-guided walking tour<\/a>. Most of the streets we walked down today were residential and most of the homes were charming, similar to the homes in the<\/a> previous posts<\/a> about downtown<\/a>. 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Near the cathedral were a couple of blocky, higher density buildings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We came to an area that we think may have been a row of foreign consulates. The buildings were all immaculately maintained, many seemed to be flying foreign flags, and it looked like they had more security than the average home. The second building had a little sign that said Greenland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We passed a tiny park with a sculpture that had been presented from the people of Lativa to the people of Iceland in gratitude for being one of the first countries to recognize Latvia as a sovereign nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not far from there, we came to the true city center, which was Austurv\u00f6llur Square, a grassy park area adjacent to the Parliament Building. The cathedral, which was consecrated in 1796 and was the city’s oldest church, marked the southeast corner. The building next to it was the parliament building, which was built in 1881. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A sign said this was Reykjav\u00edk’s oldest public park and had always been a popular gathering place for celebrations and protests. Here were some of the other buildings surrounding the square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the center was a statue of J\u00f3n Sigur\u00f0sson, leader of Iceland’s 19th century independence movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Baka Baka was a short walk beyond the square. Here was an Icelandic pastry that Keith got. Unfortunately, we’ve been struggling with the complicated Icelandic names so we couldn’t tell you what it was called. But it was yummy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After breakfast, we went around the corner to the taxi stand and caught a taxi to the local airport (not the international airport that we’d flown into<\/a>) to pick up a rental car. This statue was in front of the taxi stand. The sign said that there used to be a water pump here, and this statue was dedicated to the women who used to bring buckets, pump water, and carry the heavy water back to their homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The airport was only a mile away, near the BSI terminal<\/a>. There was a ton of construction going on around the airport. Almost all of the buildings appeared to blocky mid-rise structures. It looked to us like the airport was a former military base. When we checked the internet, we found out it was built by the British Royal Air Force during World War II, but that when the Americans took over, the Americans opened a separate base in what was now the international airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The car rental took a surprisingly long time. We finally got on the road at 1015. Much to our frustration, we got caught in an intermittent road closure, which put us another half-hour behind schedule. Of note: the automated sign switched between a green octagonal GO sign and a red octagonal STOP sign. Also, we noted that the speed check signs that told you how fast you were going had a happy face when you are within the speed limit and sad face when over the limit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm at 50-degrees Fahrenheit. The drive was… to be continued…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Monday, May 18 \u2013 The plan for today was to rent a car and drive to some of the famous sites to the south of Reykjav\u00edk. We left the hotel at 0750 and walked back to Baka Baka for breakfast. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,39,14,1,44,429,398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-europe","category-food","category-general","category-history","category-iceland","category-tourist-activities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25992"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26029,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25992\/revisions\/26029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}