TRAVELS: ICELAND (Part 1 - REYKJAVIK)
18:19:00
This is going to be a short post on my recent trip to Iceland, because I have been soooo occupied with my PhD study, hence the lack of updates.
So, here goes, my Travel Tales on Iceland, a place very dear to my heart...
Iceland has been in my 'Bucket List' for quite sometime now and thank God for the opportunity, I have been able to set foot on this 'Land of Ice and Fire' a couple of weeks ago. I bought my ticket to Iceland months before the trip (cos I'm excited like that. haha) and it wasn't the cheapest of tickets, but hey, you do what you gotta do to realise that dream! I decided to go to Iceland during winter mainly because I've always wanted to witness the great natural phenomena of the northern lights and visit one of the most beautiful ice caves in the world!
So we took an EasyJet flight from London Stanstead Airport to Reykjavik Keflavik in January 2016. We arrived around 4pm and it was already almost dusk. We took the Reykjavik Excursions (bought our tickets at the counter in the airport) bus from the airport to Hafnarfjörður. Hafnarfjörður is one of the five main towns in Reykjavik, which is located in the outskirts of Reykjavik, and would take about 20mins by bus to reach the central city of Reykjavik. We just had our rest that night in our Airbnb house and decided not to do anything except for some research that night.
The next morning, I woke up at around 8.40am and found that it was still dark outside. Sunrise in Reykjavik is at 10.40am! So we took our time to shower and made breakfast. We went out after sunrise and took a bus to Reykjavik city.
Amazing view from our room window of sunrise that morning.
Our first stop was the Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran church and is one of the most famous landmarks in Reykjavik. We entered the church and enjoyed the massive organ that were playing for a brief moment before we bought our tickets for 800ISK to go up to the viewing point right on top of the Hallgrímskirkja church. I actually expected more of the viewing area/platform because it was one of the most visited tourist spot in Reykjavik, but to our surprise, despite the fact that it provided beautiful 360 degree views of the whole Reykjavik city, it wasn't a very fancy or touristy viewing area. It just had plain concrete walls and floors with very small windows surrounding it, with metal bars attached across them. Since it was very windy and cold up there, we only stayed for a little while, took few photos and came back down.
The Hallgrímskirkja church
And of course, views of Reykjavik city from atop of the church.
Midday sun in Iceland in winter.
To be honest, I really didn't know where else to go in Reykjavik, so I guess we just went along with the commonly visited tourist spots there were, although, in my opinion, they we not that fascinating (to me at least - but its a different story with outside of Reykjavik!). We walked from Hallgrímskirkja towards the seafront to the Sólfar Sculpture (Sun Voyager), which is basically a steel sculpture of a boat by an Icelandic sculptor, Jon Gunnar Arnason. (Read more about it here). We walked along the seafront and nearby, was another famous architectural structure, the Harpa Concert Hall. This architecture piece somehow reminds me of honeycomb, haha, because of the geometric-shaped glass panels. The Harpa is said to be beautiful at night as it is lit up with colorful lights and reflects against the water surrounding it.
Sleeping Fizal.
We managed to see some nice views of snow-capped mountain while walking along the seafront.
And finally...
The Sólfar Sculpture.
...and
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Harpa Concert Hall in daylight.
Harpa beautifully lit up at night (Image source: Google images).
We then had nowhere else to go as it was starting to get darker and colder. So we went to Reykjavik downtown, which is where most souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, supermarkets and tourist information were at. We just walked around looking for souvenirs to take home and bought ourselves dinner for that night.
Some street art around Reykjavik downtown; they have quite a few but this one is my favourite!
You'll see 'polar bears' in and outside a lot of souvenir shops.
Some nice, colorful and most importantly delicious Icelandic chocolates!
...with cute names! hehe.
And that ended our day in Reykjavik.
More story on our Iceland adventure in Part 2 and Part 3.
So, here goes, my Travel Tales on Iceland, a place very dear to my heart...
Iceland has been in my 'Bucket List' for quite sometime now and thank God for the opportunity, I have been able to set foot on this 'Land of Ice and Fire' a couple of weeks ago. I bought my ticket to Iceland months before the trip (cos I'm excited like that. haha) and it wasn't the cheapest of tickets, but hey, you do what you gotta do to realise that dream! I decided to go to Iceland during winter mainly because I've always wanted to witness the great natural phenomena of the northern lights and visit one of the most beautiful ice caves in the world!
So we took an EasyJet flight from London Stanstead Airport to Reykjavik Keflavik in January 2016. We arrived around 4pm and it was already almost dusk. We took the Reykjavik Excursions (bought our tickets at the counter in the airport) bus from the airport to Hafnarfjörður. Hafnarfjörður is one of the five main towns in Reykjavik, which is located in the outskirts of Reykjavik, and would take about 20mins by bus to reach the central city of Reykjavik. We just had our rest that night in our Airbnb house and decided not to do anything except for some research that night.
The next morning, I woke up at around 8.40am and found that it was still dark outside. Sunrise in Reykjavik is at 10.40am! So we took our time to shower and made breakfast. We went out after sunrise and took a bus to Reykjavik city.
Our first stop was the Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran church and is one of the most famous landmarks in Reykjavik. We entered the church and enjoyed the massive organ that were playing for a brief moment before we bought our tickets for 800ISK to go up to the viewing point right on top of the Hallgrímskirkja church. I actually expected more of the viewing area/platform because it was one of the most visited tourist spot in Reykjavik, but to our surprise, despite the fact that it provided beautiful 360 degree views of the whole Reykjavik city, it wasn't a very fancy or touristy viewing area. It just had plain concrete walls and floors with very small windows surrounding it, with metal bars attached across them. Since it was very windy and cold up there, we only stayed for a little while, took few photos and came back down.
And of course, views of Reykjavik city from atop of the church.
To be honest, I really didn't know where else to go in Reykjavik, so I guess we just went along with the commonly visited tourist spots there were, although, in my opinion, they we not that fascinating (to me at least - but its a different story with outside of Reykjavik!). We walked from Hallgrímskirkja towards the seafront to the Sólfar Sculpture (Sun Voyager), which is basically a steel sculpture of a boat by an Icelandic sculptor, Jon Gunnar Arnason. (Read more about it here). We walked along the seafront and nearby, was another famous architectural structure, the Harpa Concert Hall. This architecture piece somehow reminds me of honeycomb, haha, because of the geometric-shaped glass panels. The Harpa is said to be beautiful at night as it is lit up with colorful lights and reflects against the water surrounding it.
Sleeping Fizal.
We managed to see some nice views of snow-capped mountain while walking along the seafront.
And finally...
...and
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Harpa Concert Hall in daylight.
We then had nowhere else to go as it was starting to get darker and colder. So we went to Reykjavik downtown, which is where most souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, supermarkets and tourist information were at. We just walked around looking for souvenirs to take home and bought ourselves dinner for that night.
Some street art around Reykjavik downtown; they have quite a few but this one is my favourite!
And that ended our day in Reykjavik.
More story on our Iceland adventure in Part 2 and Part 3.
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