Chris and Deirdre's Iceland Getaway: Day 1 & 2
One would think the flight would be the easiest part of the vacation. However, we made the mistake of booking early and had to work through challenges with the airlines and Expedia. Finally, 20 hours later, we arrived at the Keflavik Airport. Then, there was a short 45-minute bus ride to the BSI bus terminal, a shuttle ride to Bust Stop 9, and a 10-minute walk to our hotel, the Alda Hotel, Reykjavik.
Many of the older streets are too narrow for buses and too congested for taxis, so we had to walk to the closest bus stop, 5 minutes away when you aren't dragging luggage, for all of our rides to excursions.
The Alda Hotel
The wonderful receptionist at The Alda Hotel took our luggage and sent us to a local coffee shop, Kaktus Espressobar just down the street for breakfast. Fantastic food, but Icelandic coffee is too strong for me. To our eternal gratitude, our room was ready when we were done eating for an early check-in.
Rainbow Street and Hallgrimskirkja
As we made our way to our first walking tour, we found Rainbow Street (Skolavordustigur) and the Hallgrímskirkja, an Evangelical-Lutheran church. These became our landmarks as we spent the next week wandering around the city.
The street was painted in 2015 to celebrate the Reykjavik Gay Pride festival, attracting up to 100,000 visitors yearly. Hallgrimskirkja is the largest church in Iceland and among the tallest structures in the country.
Reykjavik Food Walk - Local Foodie Adventure in Iceland
This was a great way to get oriented to the city, sample restaurants (which we returned to), and see some significant landmarks, including Hallgrimskirkja, the Harpa concert hall, and Parliament House. Ben was an excellent guide.
Reykjavik Food Walk was booked on Viator.com.
Authorized, unauthorized, and commissioned building art is prevalent in Reykjavik.
- Icelandic flatbread with slow cooked lamb, carrot pure, pickled red onions and pepper cream sauce
- A small pancake (made from chickpeas), ligthly cured char, pepper cream sauce, trout roe, lentils and yuzu flower dressing
- Arctic char baked in honey, butter and lemon with cherry tomatoes and almonds
- Plokkfiskur: boiled code mashed with potatoes, onion, garlic, celery, lime, white wine, cream and butter
- Icelandic rye bread with butter
- Icelandic hot dog
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80% Lamb Hot Dog
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Icelandic Mustard
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Remolaði sauce
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Fried Onions
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Raw Onions
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Iceland Style Ketchup (with apples instead of sugar to sweeten the flavor)
This "fast food chain" was started in 1937 and is still owned by the founder's granddaughter. It is very famous, and you can read more on Wiki.
- Traditional Icelandic meat soup
*The meat in the soup was lamb, which I'm not thrilled with, so they brought me a delicious cream of mushroom soup.
- Fermented shark
- Hvít Jól Christmas beer
A national dish of Iceland, it is a sleeper shark, such as the Greenland shark, which is poisonous until fermented and dried for five months. It has a strong ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste. Yeah, it's terrible, but at least you can follow it up with a shot.
-Rye bread ice cream with whipped cream and caramelised rhubarb syrup
-An Icelandic “Kleina” (Icelandic donut).
