Fjords, Faroes, Fire & Ice: July 27 – August 11, 2010

(More pictures here)The trip from Heathrow to our hotel in London started fine. We took the express train into the city and then the underground a few stops to Westminster as per the instructions we received from the Road Scholar folks. Turned out that the walking directions from the Westminster station to the hotel were pretty unclear. First we went in the wrong direction on the wrong street. Then we learned that Millbank Street where the hotel is located changes its name twice between the tube station and the hotel. We dragged our suitcases up and down several flights of steps along the way and we were both sweaty messes by the time we arrived.

We relaxed a bit, washed the sweaty stuff and headed down to the concierge to get theater tickets for the following evening. Then we went to a nearby pub for lunch and spent some time at a nearby branch of the Tate Museum.

The next day, Wednesday, we slept in, had a nice breakfast and set out for a day of walking. According to my pedometer we covered about 9 miles. We saw Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Wellington Arch, Knightsbridge Road and some lovely residential street along the way. The highlight was a visit to Kensington Palace. It's under renovation so they set up the available rooms as a sort of puzzle game finding the seven princesses who lived in the palace over time. Each room had a theme relating to the personality, childhood, etc. of one of the princesses with clever modern pieces and installations alongside the artwork that is normally in the room

There were several families with kids of all ages and watching them was almost as much fun as the displays. One room had a large chest with many doors and drawers, each concealing some treasure or other of the princess. A little boy opened a bottom drawer filled with insect specimens under glass and exclaimed with great glee, “Look! Dead flies!” He was entranced.

In another room there was an old manual typewriter with a roll of paper for visitors to leave messages. A teenage boy was seated at the desk and several older women were explaining how to use the thing. He had just learned about the carriage return. We watched for a bit and I commented that this was payback for every time one of us had needed to get computer help from someone like him.

As we headed back to the hotel we stopped for a lovely, classy lunch at Harvey Nichols featured in the TV show “Absolutely Fabulous.” The food was excellent, the service impeccable and it was quite a nice stop along the way. We also bought sandwiches in their food shop for our after theater dinner.

We got back to the hotel pretty much just in time to get to the Road Scholar meet and greet. We met our tour leader, Karen, our Site Coordinator, Eirikur and the other 19 travelers. Then we went off to the theater.

“We Will Rock You” is based on music by Queen. It was nearly three hours long and the theater was really warm, but it was fun. Loud, kind of lame acting and choreography, but excellent voices and great costumes and sets. We cabbed home, settled our bill for last night's dinner and basically managed to leave with no leftover British pounds.

The official beginning of the trip on Thursday was not very auspicious. We had been told that our bags needed to be in the lobby by 8:30 AM and we needed to be ready to leave by 9:00. We were all very prompt, but shortly before 9 we were informed that there was a mix-up with the bus. Instead of coming to London to take us to Harwich, the driver gone to Harwich to take us to London. Now we’d be leaving at 10:30. We were invited to go up to the lounge for coffee or tea and asked to be in the lobby at 10:20. At 10:20 we found out that the bus had not yet arrived and probably wouldn't until about 11:30. Karen, our leader, was quite upset. Had she known from the start how delayed we’d be she'd have arranged at least a walking tour of the area. We were right near Parliament, in view of the Eye, down the block from the Tate Britain – plenty of options. But instead we stood or sat around waiting. At least it was an opportunity to chat and get acquainted.

We had a local guide for the morning – never caught his name – who was supposed to narrate a city tour. He did a terrific job of pointing out interesting places as we worked our way out of the city and headed to Harwich, so props to him for trying to turn lemons to lemonade and actually having some success.

Boarding the ship was not unlike boarding a plane – passport check, security check, etc. When we got to our cabin we discovered that it had one double bed. The steward who escorted us said that it could be separated, but we inspected and saw immediately that it was not that kind of bed at all. So we headed for reception and to find Karen to tell her what was going on.

The woman at reception was sympathetic but not very helpful. She explained that the ship was fully booked and she would not be able to promise a change nor would she know anything about availability until we set sail and they saw if someone failed to show up. To add to the stress, our late departure had, of course, resulted in a late arrival and at this point we had literally five minutes to get to lunch or go without until 6:15 dinner.

This was clearly not acceptable. Fortunately Ellie, one of the women traveling alone in our group, came along and I asked what her cabin situation was. She said she had a cabin to herself with two twin beds and offered gladly to make the switch. However, her cabin was one deck below ours, with portholes instead of windows. The portholes were a decent size, but we were in a lower category than what we paid for. The cruise line gave us a cabin credit to partially compensate us for the mix-up. They screwed up, but they did try to make amends although when we got home and followed through the were somewhat less accomodating.

The first night and the following day were fairly rough. We took Bonine for the duration of the trip to ward off any seasickness, but the trip smoothed out considerably after that first day. We were at sea all day Friday, sailing from Harwich to our first stop in Norway. There were lectures, activities of all sort and many possible diversions. We had found the walking track and went up before breakfast with the idea that Marie would walk and I would practice my tai chi. The ship was so rocky and heaving that it was nearly impossible to maintain balance. I got through the slow form but it was ugly and the fast form was totally out of the question.

We lurched our way to the Lido for the breakfast buffet and managed to handle that OK and then intended to go to the port lecture on Flam but after about a half hour sitting there we headed back to the cabin where Marie lay down for a couple of hours and I watched old Love Boat episodes on TV. Apparently some of the episodes were filmed on the ship we were traveling on, the Discovery. It fascinated me to see how spacious the cabins were on the TV ship – large bedrooms, living rooms, dressing rooms, etc. Not a lot like what we have, although our cabin is perfectly comfortable and actually quite efficient.

By lunch time we both felt better and went up to the buffet again. We sat with a couple of our group members and got to know each other a bit. By then the sea had calmed down quite a bit so walking had become easier and we didn't feel queasy or lightheaded any more. There had been plans for a cocktail get-together and a captain's dinner with the suggestion that we dress formally. The cocktail event was canceled due to the weather. We were all quite happy not to have to dress up.

Saturday also did not start out well but ended up being fine. First, the good news was that we were in the fjord and the water was totally calm. We were supposed to gather at 10 for a 10:20 or so departure. There was a problem with one of the tenders that was supposed to take us to shore so we didn't actually leave until around 11:30.

The morning tour took us by bus up to Stalheim Hotel, passing gorgeous scenery along the way including incredible waterfalls. Some of them are many hundreds of feet long and even though they are fairly narrow they are really something to see. At the hotel we were treated to tea or coffee and yummy Danish pastry with apricot filling and honeyed almonds. The view from the hotel terrace was spectacular. We drove part way down the hill to stop and eat our box lunches near a trail head that was about a 10 minute walk to a very wonderful view of the Stalheimfossen Waterfall. It was really amazing.

Next we went back down to Flam where we had an hour or so to look around before catching the train up to Vatnahalsen Mountain Lodge. The train ride took about an hour with two stops. One was to let the train coming in the opposite direction pass us at the only point where there are two tracks. The other was to catch a lovely view of Kjosfossen waterfall where a "water sprite," a woman dressed in red, perched on a rock far off beside the falls dancing to very ethereal sounding music.

When we arrived at the lodge it had started to drizzle. We had waffles with sour cream and raspberry jam and tea or coffee and then, despite the rain, I set off to wander. I found a walking and biking trail that led from behind the lodge out to a lake. Between the rain and the low clouds it was hard to fully appreciate, but it was lovely.

Sunday we arrived in Alesund, a town of about 14,000 residents that burned to the ground in a huge fire in 1904. The whole place was rebuilt in Art Nouveau style and it was very interesting to see the variations in the buildings even though the style is technically the same.

The weather was bad when we left the ship – rainy and chilly. We started out by visiting the small and very beautiful Borlund Church. The guide at the church told us that there were objections when it was first built because people felt it looked too much like a Catholic church. They have a huge organ and one of the British ladies who was on our bus played a few melodies for us, including the bridal march. That brought a smile to several faces and one young couple kissed as they walked up the aisle. Very sweet.

Then we drove to Sunnmore Museum and walked through a collection of relocated but authentic buildings of the sort used in communities in the 17th-19th centuries and a few even older. The roofs are sod – boards covered with birch bark covered with sod with grass, flowers and even an occasional small tree growing out of the roof.

At the museum we saw a demonstration of folk music and dance. The instruments included a very long birch horn, a goat's horn (similar to a shofar but with finger holes bored into it) and an eight stringed violin. It is played as normal on four strings while the other four provide a harmonic.

The dancers were amateur locals who enjoy the culture. The leader said the members of the group range in age from 5 to 70. We saw a few young girls and one very little one – probably the five year old. She really didn't know what she was doing but she was very, very cute.

Our final stop was at Mount Aksla, the highest point, with an observation deck overlooking the town and the harbor. Beautiful views and lots of great pictures. Our local guide, Nigel, took us on a round-about route back to the ship pointing out some special buildings and other sites along the way including the last remaining house that survived the fire in 1904.

Sunday we got together with several of our fellow tour members for group trivia. Everyone was totally silly and a few folks had had a bit more wine than needed, perhaps. Deanna was organizing us and, she had us count off to get arranged into four-person teams. I was a 2 along with Nancy and someone else. At one point, trying to get us together, I asked, “Who else is a 2?” Ellin then announced that her father and Pam's was a Jew! After a few seconds of staring at each other while she tried to understand why I had asked for a religious head count and I tried to figure out why she felt obligated to share her family history we realized what had happened and collapsed into giggles. For several days after that story was told and retold to much laughter.

Monday afternoon's excursion was to Stremoy, Faroe Islands. Our bus made a loop from the harbor at Torshavn north to Saksun to a small museum. There were lots of sheep and several men in a fairly small pen shearing off the wool in large. We tourists jockeying for position with our cameras outside the pen were a real mirror image of the crowd of bleating sheep inside the pen.

The museum was a smallish house furnished with various household objects. It was attractive, but not significantly different from every other old house exhibit I've ever seen. The scenery was something else. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be steep, very green hillsides, very rocky, with sheep seeming to cling sideways to the hillsides. We saw many sheep (there are, apparently, about three times as many sheep as people in the Faroes), some cows, a few horses, some ducks and several geese. But the sheep clearly predominate. There is no farming other than grass for hay and some potatoes. It's obvious that most of the land we saw could not possibly be farmed.

From Saksun we headed south along the east coast of the island to Kollafjordur where we visited a lovely little wooden church. Like many Scandinavian churches, the decorations included 2 model ships. The organ had wooden pipes that were also quite interesting and again, the surrounding scenery was amazing.

Our next stop was across the island in Leynar with a beautiful view of the water, some interesting buildings with sod roofs and in one spot a streak of what looked like daffodils trailing down the side of a hill.

We drove into increasingly heavy fog south to Nordadalur where we were supposed to get a view of Koltur, the smallest of the islands, lying just off Streymoy's coast, but the fog was imppenetrable so we just turned around and headed back to Torshavn. We never stopped anywhere to buy souvenirs, which amazed me. I think that may be a first in all my travels – a stop with no chance to spend money and support the local economy!

Dinner Monday was fun. As we got to know each other better there was always a lot of laughter around the table and the waiters got into it as well. One of them, Alex, entertained us with funny and clever tricks. One night he folded a napkin into a Viking hat and put it first on Eirikur and then on Dave. Then he tore, twisted and folded paper napkins into a beautiful long stemmed rose for Karen. At Monday dinner he constructed a marvel by turning a water glass upside down, balancing an empty toothpick holder on top of it, sticking a toothpick into one of the holes, sort of weaving the tines of two forks together and sticking a toothpick into the tines and then balancing the end of the toothpick on the end of one in the holder. He also played a trick on Eirikur and then on a gentleman at another table. He had them place their index fingers, close together onto the table. Then he balanced a glass on their fingers, asked if everyone was done with dinner and proceeded to walk away, leaving his victim trapped. He played one other trick on Eirikur, but it was somewhat risqué, so I won’t include it here.

Tuesday was another a day at sea, sailing from the Faroes to Iceland. In the morning we had a geology lecture by Eirikur with some interesting information about the tectonic plates, the ocean ridges, the Iceland volcanoes and other factors that led to the creation of Iceland and its amazing supply of geothermal and water energy. During this trip we got to see where the Mid-Atlantic ridge rises from the ocean so that one side is North America and the other is Eurasia. Pretty cool! We also got a lesson on how to say the name of the volcano that erupted last March and spewed ash in the air for days, disrupting air travel. “Eye-a-fyatt-ja-kott”

After lunch we discovered that the jacuzzis were filled and available so we spent about an hour soaking in the hot water and letting the jets massage whatever needed massaging until it was time for afternoon tea. The theme was Chocolate Passion. The first thing that greeted us was a display of three gorgeous cake and cookie concoctions. One was a replica of the Eiffel tower, one was a castle and one was a mansion, I think, with a pond in front of it and a duck in the pond. They were just amazing! And the desserts were equally decadent: chocolate cheese cake, sacher torte, German chocolate cake and more!

Wednesday we set off early for our visit to Akureyri, a small city (18,000) in the north of Iceland. The scenery en route from stop to stop was amazing – mountains, green fields, sheep, glacial ice still on the top of relatively low hills, long distances between farm houses and little or no traffic on a good road.

Our first stop was the waterfall at Godafoss. The other cascades we'd seen were lovely, but they were long and fairly narrow streams of water running down hillsides. This one is a major waterfall – three sections, each quite wide, pouring down into a river that turns and churns over rocks. We had a quite a bit of time for pictures and were able to walk a fair distance in each direction in order to view the falls from different directions.

Thorgeir, the law-speaker of the Icelandic parliament threw his idols representing the Norse gods, into the falls in the year 1000 and proclaimed that Iceland had become a Christian.

From Godafoss we drove to Lake Myvatn which is bordered on one side by a number of pseudocraters that were formed when lava overflowed the water soaked land, The lake is lovely and is home to many species of ducks, and the pseudo craters are impressive.

The next stop was Dimmuborgir, a landscape covered with lava fields where we hiked past some amazing formations. Some of them look almost like the ruins of some earlier civilization. And looking at others it's easy to see how the folklore arose about trolls who turn to stone if they are caught outside when the sun rises. We also learned about the 13 Christmas lads, sons of two trolls who live near Dimmuborgir. They come down from the hills one at a time over the 13 days before Christmas and return one a time over the thirteen days after. They are not evil, but they are mischievous. As we were leaving our local guide, Sigridur, got a call that a woman from another bus was missing. Later, when the word came that she had been found and reunited with her group Sigridur told us that undoubtedly the trolls had taken her, probably because she was wearing red.

Our final stop on the tour was the geothermal sulfur springs near the Namafjall Mountains. The landscape is astounding. It would make an excellent set for a sci-fi film. The hills are streaked with yellow sulfur, and the ground is a mass of bubbling mud pits with steam coming out of vents in the ground. Everything smells of sulfur but I didn't find it overwhelming. I joined Ingrid who was breathing in the steam as a cleansing exercise, figuring it couldn't hurt. It was really a place out of a movie set.

We returned to the ship in time for lunch and then spent some time out on deck trying to spot puffins or whales as we sailed out of the fjord. No puffins, but I did see a whale spout and a bit of the whale's tail. It never breached enough to be really visible, but I guess it counts as a sighting. A woman standing with us spotted it and shouted. If she hadn't pointed it out I honestly wouldn't have known what I was looking at.

Thursday we had our first visit to Reykjavik and our last day on board. We were free in the morning and Marie and I spent another wonderful hour in the jacuzzi,. After that I went to the photographer's lecture on editing and picked up some useful tips that I tried once I got home.

In the afternoon Eirikur led us on visits to two museums. The first, Arbaer Open Air Museum, is a collection of buildings that have been brought together from other places around Reykjavik. Most date from the 1800s and the guides are dressed in appropriate garments. The weather was lovely and it was good to be outdoors. The second visit was more unusual. We visited the former home of a sculptor named Asmundur Sveinnsonn who lived from the late 1890s into the mid 20^th century. Much of his work is fairly abstract and much of it is done on a grand scale. The museum had small models of some pieces indoors and huge ones in the sculpture garden. The theme for the indoor exhibit was “the blossoming woman.” His statues depict women as workers, very strong and sturdy; women as mothers nurturing and protecting their children; women as the embodiment of Eve, sexier or maybe more sensuous would be more appropriate. The outdoor versions were very imposing. One giant statue of a horse-like creature was originally conceived to be large enough to straddle a major intersection with three-lane roadways passing under the legs of the animal! I can't imagine.

We left the ship after breakfast Friday morning and traveled to the Blue Lagoon, a spa built around the hot water runoff from a factory. The place was lovely. There were nice big towels, communal changing rooms, showers, lockers and a totally yummy hot pool, a waterfall that provided a wonderful back, shoulder and neck massage and stations where you could rub silica mud on your skin. We stayed in the water enjoying the lovely heat for about an hour, commenting periodically to each other how young and wrinkle-free we all looked. It was really delightful and compared quite favorably with the hot spring spa I had visited in Italy.

The Centrum Hotel in Reykjavik is very nice. The rooms are on the small side, but very comfortable. After a lovely lunch we unpacked and then headed out to explore and do a little shopping. We poked around in a bunch of shops including a wool place, several souvenir shops, an antiques store, a gallery and some clothing stores. I saw lots of very pretty things but nothing I wanted. I did get an idea of what yarn might cost and saw some Lopi that I liked a lot.

Saturday was a long day with lots of sightseeing and long bus rides between places of interest giving us a chance to see lots of amazing scenery. We started with a visit to the Nesvellir Power Plant, which is huge. It provides 97% of the hot water and a large percentage of the electric power to Reykjavik via a pipeline that is 27 kilometers long and carries 1850 liters of water per second! The plant is astonishing – huge, shiny pipes and machines and in all more interesting than I thought it would be. The pipeline itself is amazing. The pipe is about three feet in diameter, laid on a base that allows it to move with the movement of the earth (Iceland is very prone to earthquakes) and at certain points in the road it seems to stretch endlessly in both directions.

We drove through some heavy fog in places and looked for trolls in the mist (I saw two – actually rock formations that looked like troll faces) and were in and out of rain for most of the day.

Our next stop was lunch at a hotel near the Gullfoss waterfall where we were cream of mushroom soup, delicious wild salmon with veggies and potatoes and a fudgy chocolate cake for dessert.

The waterfall itself is magnificent. It's about 90 feet high in two steps and quite wide. The water pours onto rocks so the swirls and rapids make for a very dramatic view. We got to see it from above and then from a lower vantage point, both amazing.

Stop three was Geysir, the geyser from which all geysers get their name. It erupts every 6-8 minutes and we got to see it three times. The third and last time several of us made the mistake of standing downwind to get pictures. I got a great picture, but we got totally soaked. The water was warm, but the air was very chilly so for a while after that I was pretty cold. However, I got the picture and that’s what counts, right?

From there we went on to Thingvellir where the inhabitants of Iceland used to gather for their annual assembly back in the 9^th and 10^th centuries. It is now a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It sits in the valley that rests on the fault line dividing North America from Eurasia, which was pretty impressive in itself.

I find it fascinating that these people had a national assembly so long ago and even more amazing that they had no death penalty for crimes. The guilty party had to pay compensation, might be banished for a brief periods or might be banished forever and forced to leave Iceland. If he couldn't or wouldn’t leave he was in danger of being killed on sight, but if he left he could return after 20 years having served his sentence. Pretty modern thinking for those times. However, there was also a pool where women who bore illegitimate children were drowned. Not so modern after all.

Our final stop was the Lopi yarn factory outlet, Alafoss. Several of us were very excited about that and Eirikur had made special arrangements for them to stay open late for us. I bought a book of patterns and enough yarn to make at least two sweaters. One is a very pretty pink and the other is a sort of denimy blue. I haven’t decided what exactly to make, but the patterns are super so I’m sure I’ll find something that I’ll love.

Saturday’s farewell dinner was a very nice evening with lots of laughter and stories and fun. Sunday morning we saw a few of the folks at breakfast and then we set off to do some local exploring. We started with a walk to a nearby cemetery that was very interesting, as are most told cemeteries, I think. This one seemed to date from the early 1900s for the most part and it was fun to try to figure out the Icelandic writings and the family relationships.

Afterwards we walked back and found the Reykjavik Art Museum which had a couple of very interesting exhibits. One in particular was by an Icelandic artist named Erro who spent a lot of time in New York and had pieces that combined portraits of well-known people with cartoonish backgrounds and surroundings. There were musicians, composers, entertainers and several political figures. It was pretty clear that the artist was a liberal and a pacifist. Some of the portraits were very blunt. Nixon came in for some very harsh criticism in two pieces in particular.

We found our way to the puffin-watching booth and bought our tickets for the afternoon sail, poked around in some shops and then returned to the hotel for our last “free” lunch and a chance to say goodbye to the rest of the group.

The puffin tour was fun, but pretty unsuccessful as far as seeing puffins. We were told that on nice days, which this definitely was, the puffins go off in search of fish and on cloudy or rainy days they stay home on the island. We did see three or four and I did get some pictures but I don't know if anyone will be able to tell that they are puffins. Still, it was very pleasant being on the boat sailing in and around the bay.

We did a quick run through the Settlement Museum that is literally under our hotel where the ruins of a Viking longhouse dating back to 872 + or -2 (actually the name on the museum signs!) were discovered in the early 1970s. It was 20 minutes before closing so we got in for free. It is set up in a very interesting way with lots of interactive buttons, animations showing daily life and good explanations.

We had dinner at a small place near the harbor called the Seabaron. You choose the kind of fish you want and they grill it on a skewer. They also have lobster soup or fish soup. I had fish soup (delicious) and grilled minke whale – very meaty, tasted sort of like lamb, very chewy and a little hard to manage with plastic utensils. But I was glad I tried it. This will most likely end up being my exotic food experience for this trip.

The final event of the day was the ghost tour. Our guide, Oli, was hysterical. He talked about the Vikings' “kick ass gods” and told some very interesting and funny stories about the various possible ghosts at each site we visited. Good weather, good sightseeing: a good day

Monday morning an errand at a pharmacy sent us off in a different direction from what we had intended. We passed one of the largest bookstores in Reykjavik where I didn't find exactly a modern poet but did get a biography with lots of poetry in it of Jonas Hallgrimsson, the Bard of Iceland, who lived in the first half of the 18^th century. Close enough. (Note: Once I got home I searched on Amazon and found a wonderful collection of Post-War Icelandic Poetry published by the University of Iowa.)

We also found our way to the Women's Handknitting Association shop. I bought a pair of flip top mittens and another Lopi pattern book. Outside the shop on a bench was a really long scarf in progress with a note explaining that a tunnel 17 kilometers long was being built to connect two communities and inviting passersby to add a few rows to the project. The scarf is being worked on in pieces all over the country and when completed will hopefully be long enough to thread though the tunnel. Marie and I each contributed.

From there we walked up to the Lutheran Domkirkjan Cathedral. It is a very tall, elegantly simple building with a huge organ and very plain but lovely decor. In front of the cathedral is a statue of Leif Ericsson, a gift from the US,

Then we set off on our original plan – a circuit of the pond, Tjorninn, with a stop along the way at the National Museum. This museum deals with the history of Iceland from it’s first settlement in the 9^th century to the present. It is beautifully designed and organized, with displays leading naturally from one era to the next. At one point there's a little side room where you can try on some old garments and pose wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and sword. Of course we both did both things and look very funny in the pictures. At the end of the exhibit is a large oval display of various everyday items, going around the circumference from the 1800's to today with things like an old typewriter, roller skates, frozen food, a very early computer, contact lenses, etc. Very well done.

We continued on our walk around the pond and strolled through the Pavilion Gardens, which are really beautiful. The flowers are colorful and in some cases unusual, at least to me. I also found and photographed a statue of Jonas Hallgrimsson, whose biography I had bought earlier.

The National Gallery, which was to have been our next stop was closed so we headed up to the harbor to find the flea market, which turned out to only be open on weekends, so we missed out on that. Instead we scouted out restaurants for dinner and narrowed it down to two choices – a place near the harbor and an organic place called Fish and Chips.

Back at the hotel we decided to get a jump on our VAT refund forms by filling in the required information. I had three and Marie had seven. By the time we were done I think each one of the forms had some place that was crossed out because we put information in the wrong place. We laughed about it all the way to dinner, which we decided to have at the place with the decadent desserts and not the healthy organic place. After struggling with the forms we felt entitled to a reward.

Dinner was terrific. I ordered mussels and French fries and there must have been four or five dozen mussels! The mussels were served with a sort of dill mayonnaise that was delicious. For dessert I had strawberries in a slightly licorice tasting syrup with a scoop of strawberry sorbet and whipped cream. Just yummy!

Tuesday was our last full day in Reykjavik. We started after breakfast with a visit to the Catholic cathedral a couple of blocks away, accompanied by Harry, one of the tour group folks who also stayed on for a couple of extra days. The cathedral is very much a mix of the opulence that one would expect in a Catholic cathedral, combined with the simple, elegant lines we saw in the Lutheran version the previous day. The stained glass windows are simple small, square panes of white and one other color – some blue, some reddish. The altar is red marble or granite and nothing is overwhelmingly ornate.

National Gallery, like the other museums we visited, is small, well designed and easy to negotiate. There is a whole area downstairs for children and there was a group of kids who looked to be about 5 or 6 years old doing some activities before they came upstairs to one of the galleries.

There were three main exhibits. The first was a series of self-portrait photographs inspired by various movies, some well known and some not. There were no titles and it was a little frustrating not to know what the source inspiration was, but it was an interesting concept. The second floor had a small exhibit of lithographs and drawings by Edvard Munch. I’ve always found his work depressing and the pieces chosen for this exhibit bore that out. The final floor was work from the museum's collection including a piece by Erro, the artist exhibited at the modern art museum. This piece was very different and if I hadn't read the title information I never would have guessed it was the same artist.

For lunch we went to Mokka Kaffi, recommended by both our guidebooks and indulged in waffles with strawberry jam and whipped cream and a cup of tea. It was lovely and not vey expensive.

After lunch we headed back to revisit the Women's Handknitting Association and find a gallery where I had seen some interesting pieces in the window. The gallery turned out to be closed – perhaps the artist is on vacation, but I bought three very nice prints at the museum. I bought an ear warmer headband with most of my remaining kronur minus what I’d put aside for the shuttle to the airport. I had about $3.50 in kronur left and donated it at the airport at one of the collection points for a children’s charity.

We wandered around on the way back, window shopping along Laugavegur, one of the main shopping streets and then strolled down to the harbor to see the abstract sculpture of a Viking longboat where a nice man took a picture of the two of using Marie's camera.

Wednesday – our last morning! After breakfast we went to get a new lock for Marie’s suitcase, scouted some possibilities for lunch, walked around the pond, Tjorninn, for the last time and took a few final photos and talked a lot about the previous days’ travels, the members of the group, our feelings about Iceland, etc. We had a delicious final lunch at Geysir Café with crepes and banana cream for dessert.

When we got to the airport we found that our flight was delayed an hour due to late incoming planes, so we wandered, had a cold drink, bought some sandwiches and water for lunch/dinner on the plane and finally headed for the gate. The process was a little strange. We had already gone through security but had to clear passport inspection before getting to the gate. It seemed to be only for people heading to the US and Canada. Gates for Europe-bound flights were before the passport inspection station. At the gate there were very few seats and there was a second small area with a few seats that you could enter after showing your passport and boarding pass.. And when the plane was ready for boarding everyone just boarded. There was no discernible process.

The flight was quick – 5 ½ hours – and uneventful. We had a brief delay getting our luggage due to a jam on the conveyor but got through customs and immigration easily and quickly, It was a good trip – interesting sights, good travel companions, gorgeous scenery. But it’s always good to be back home.