Akureyri, Iceland

Tuesday August 29 – Akureyri, Iceland

 

The Plan:

Since we visited this port in 2010 on the ms Prinsendam, we have already taken a tour the countryside which did not allow us anytime to discovery the city.  We might do that this visit or take another excursion offered by HAL which lasts for 6 1/2 hours with a lunch included.

 

The Reality:

Barbara really wanted to see more of the country outside of town and visit a couple of places we missed in 2010, and if possible see a little bit more of the city, time permitting.  So we booked two tickets to see “The Jewels of the North”, leaving around 8:30 and returning just before “sail away”….lunch included!

 

As we excited the ship, there was only one tour bus left in the staging area and it was configured like no other tour bus I had ever seen….with tires larger than usual…. clearance twice to three times that of a standard tour bus….a driver’s compartment that looked like the front of a long haul European Truck!  What has she got me in for this time, I wondered? Are we going off road and cross country, bush whacking today? Oh, dear Barbara what have you wrought? Notice the picture!

We were some of the first group of 54 passengers to arrive and as we “mounted the stairs” to this behemoth, I noticed two additional rows of seats forward of the boarding door and behind the driver and the tour guides seat.  I also noticed that the driver’s “cockpit” looked like it was patterned after one in a 747 airplane.  Hang on Jack, we are in for a long day! So as we sat waiting for those seven or eight folks who didn’t read the correct boarding time, (printed on their boarding pass) I contemplated making a run for the border, but Barbara had already made sure my seat belt was securely fastened.  

Finally, the last two arrived seeming as they were out for a Sunday stroll, and possibly thinking “did we have a tour today”? Swish slammed the two doors, and now I had no choice but to ride it out. As soon as we were “airborne”, our guide Herman, commenced to explain, over the feedback squeal of the speakers,, just what we would be seeing today. At that point I pulled out my Plantroncis blue tooth head set and drifted into to LaLa  land to tunes from my Apple Music collection. 

Once we reached the open highway, I started to notice other attributes of this vehicle….comfortable seats, huge picture windows….tons of headroom, and a very smooth ride.  Maybe this won’t be so bad after all as the  “Dances with Wolves” theme matched the countryside rolling past.  I can do this for 6 more hours.

 

Bottom line: It was a wonderful tour, everyone was congenial, back to he bus on time and at times the hills and valleys reminded me of places where i was raised in Colorado.

With the exception of the final hour to forth-five minutes the sky was overcast, but it did not dim the starkness of the lava beds nor the verdant grasslands and pastures, with the customary free ranging sheep dotting the scene.

We enjoyed the Godafoss waterfall, resting place of the heathen gods, the Dimmuborgir lava labyrinth, and finally before lunch, the gurgling purple and yellow sulfur cauldrons at the high-temperature geothermal field of Namaskard. Our lunch at the Myllan Hotel was especially tasty, consisting of hot coffee, cauldrons of cauliflower soup, bread, and platters piled high with Arctic Char, steamed vegetables, and potatoes.

As our flying carpet rolled smoothly along the shoreline across from the city we were treated to clear blue skies punctuating, the end to a perfect, and one of the best, tour days.

 

Jack W Cummings VOV 2017 – sailing across the Arctic Circle, thence on a westerly course to our final Iceland port of Isafjordur