So with Anna drugged up and vigorously reading the last Harry Potter book we took off on our 3 hour flight to Keflavik airport. After admiring the architecture of the airport building, adjusting to the cooler climate and negotiating the intimidating passport authority (they asked me questions!) we met Andre our friendly mini cab driver.
Andre was a star and once he'd ascertained we were driving all the way round his home island he was very keen to tell us all the best places to visit in the north. So much so he had no problem with holding up the rest of the people on the bus when he dropped us off, by running out so he could lay out our map on the pavement and draw enthusiastically all the places we shoud see! After requesting Andre also told us how to say thank you - which is takk (pronounced tagg).
Our first stop was the famous Blue lagoon before completing the transfer to our Hotel. Andre told us this place was created by accident whilst creating the Svartsengi geothermal power plant. The power plant is powered by superheated seawater drawn from deep bore holes (2.5km) which is converted to steam and after the steam passed through the turbines, it was converted back to water and channeled into the lagoon. The water was found to have healing properties when the site workers decided to have a dip. The water is a mix of fresh and sea water that is rich with salt, minerals, cyanobacteria and Icelandic magic! So the Blue Lagoon site was purposefully built near the completed power station with water pumped across. We chilled out here for a couple of hours, it was a great start to un-winding and getting into holiday mode. The building and facilities are stunning and the experience was thoroughly enjoyable despite the rather liberal changing facilities!
Andre picked us up from the Blue lagoon and dropped us off at the Icelandair Loftledir Hotel. We had a very nice room that over looked Reykjavik's small internal airport. We could watch the planes landing and taking off from our window as well as see the Perlan (pearl) restaurant on the hill to the left. We were impressed! I thought if its good enough for the English and German women's under 19's world cup finalists who were staying there, then its good enough for us!
If you look closely you can see a plane landing over Anna's head:
The geothermal beach was lovely, with an average sea temperature of 20 degrees (warm water is pumped from the local geothermal power plant - A) and a large hot tub, but it was a little small scale after visiting the Blue Lagoon, so we wandered for a couple of kilometres into town center.
Reykjavik's geothermal beach:
Reykjavik is a very pleasant small capital city (In fact it's the cleanest capital city I have ever visited). We walked up the equivalent of Oxford Street which was more like Huntingdon High Street but with more upmarket shops. By this time both of us were very hungry and we decided to treat ourselves to a meal out. We'd heard it would be expensive but it is still shocking to see individual pizzas sell for best part of £20 and a half litre of beer go for about six pounds (not even a full pint!). We found a place which had relatively good prices and looked good called Cafe Victor located next to the Ice Bar.
It was indeed very nice and we both ate well plus had a pint for about £40 all in. To say I "ate well" is of course an understatement. My "Super Burger" was about 7" high, double layered and about as rare as mince could reasonably be. It was so "bloody" nice it attracted the attention of an American couple sat next to us. Paul and Tristen from Washington DC. After talking about my super burger and what we were all generally up to they invited us to a bar which they’d been told had the cheapest beer in Reykjavik called Bellys)
It was about £3.50 for a half litre. And £5 for a special deal which included a beer and a shot of something strong. Needless to say the beer and the strong stuff was properly sampled by Paul and myself.
The bar was a little bit suspect due to the distinct lack of females and the amount of blokes going in and out of the gents. But at least the beer was good!
We said our drunken good byes and stumbled home, it was now about 1am but not quite dark as the sun was only just over the horizon - it felt like Reykjavik was just starting to come to life as the seemingly drunken locals hit the streets. We took a few pictures on the way home and talked a load of "trash".
Finally we hit the sack as we had to be up in 6 hours to retrieve our hire car.
Reykjavik at 1am in late July:
Weather: Cold but mostly sunny.
Distance travelled: About 2000 km by plane abd 40km by bus.
