The Blue Lagoon
Blue Lagoon was just 20+ minutes from the airport. By the time we picked up our rental car from the airport Blue Rental Car outlet, it was about 9pm. But at 9pm the sky was still bright and sunny, the day “seemed” early and we were still fresh and full of energy. So we headed straight to “The Blue Lagoon” instead of driving to Reykjavik where our two night stay were located.
We were not at the Blue Lagoon for a spa or swim, our original plan was to buy entrance ticket to go in and have tea/coffee. We not sure if a ticket was needed for just eating at the cafe. Since it was already 9.30pm by the time we arrived, we knew we would not have too much time to explore and still have tea/coffee. Tea/coffee at the Cafe was out!
Near the carpark, we saw a map that indicated a short walking route by the lagoon and a long route (3.4 km) that go to Grindavik. We took the shorter route.
It was a lovely walk. The sun was slowly on its way down (set) so the lagoons were casted with golden rays. There was wooden plank walk over the water of the lagoon and that allowed us to see the water up close. The water was cobalt blue in color, not transparent more like a blue on a white base. White fumes were rising from some part of the water.
Parking zones in Reykjavik
Reykjavik was the city that we would stay for our first two nights Being a city we anticipated that parking might not be so free and easy, so we did some researches on parking requirements. There were four type of parking zones in Reykjavik central. Red zone was the most expensive and green the cheapest. For these zones free parking kicked in after 6pm and started again at 9am the next day. On Sunday there were no parking charges.
“Our stay” was in the Red zone but good for us we arrived near midnight so parking was free. We were able to park near which made it easy to unload our bags and checked into our stay. The next morning before 9am we were off to some sightseeing.
To facilitate payment of parking we downloaded two parking apps they were EasyPark and Parkapp.
Sun voyager
We visited the Sun Voyager in the morning. It was located not far from our stay and parking zone (Blue zone) around the marina was easy to find.
Placing the Sun Voyager just by the sea in the open air was a great move. The steel structure gleamed beautifully in the sun. It was about 9am in the morning and there was no other visitors but us.
This shining steel scrupture was installed in 1990. It was the winning piece of a outdoor sculpture competition to celebrate Reykjavik’s 200 year anniversary. The scrupture reminded ones of a viking ship which was not the creator’s intention. It was supppose to represent the promise of undiscovered territory and a dream of hope, progress and freedom.
Walkabout central Reykjavik
The day was long so we had many hours exploring central Reykjavik. The sun rose as early as 4am in the morning and even at 1 am at night, the sky was still bright. There was no dark night at all in July! The wonderful thing about the sun was it energised us, even after many hours of outdoor exploration we did not feel tired.
From our appartment we walked down the road and in no more than 200m we came to the rainbow street. The rainbow street ( Skólavörðustígur ) was a walking street not opened vehicle. At the end of the rainbow street was a shopping street (Laugavegur) renowed for boutiques, restaurants and bars. Here we saw more visitors walking about.
After the shopping street we walked to the public square and then the City Hall.
The City Hall was by Lake Tjornin and even from the City Hall we could see Hallgrimskirkja (church).
On our return route we walked past an icecream store. Ice cream was a great weakness of mine. We ordered a vanilla favoured icecream and a chocolate icecream. Yummy, yummy.
Street arts
We noticed a number of street arts as we roamed the streets. There were colourful ones, black & white ones, cartoonist ones, very realistic ones, etc. All were huge and impressive.
Hallgrimskirkja
This church was definitely an iconic structure. It was so different from all the churches we had seen before. It was stunning and could be seen from far away. It looked like a rocket ready to take off.
Hallgrimskirkja was 74.5m (244 ft) tall, it was the largest church in Iceland. It took 41 years to build, the church construction started in 1945 and ended in 1986, but the landmark tower was completed long before the whole church was finished.
Hallgrimskirkja was located at the start of the road leading to our stay just 220m away. So the moment we stepped out of return to our stay we could see it clearly. We saw it in the morning, we saw it at midnight. We saw it even when we were a kilometer away at the City Hall and at Lake Tjornin.
We took a walk round the church, looking at it from the front, the side and the back. The sides and the back did not looked as impressive as the front. Hallgrimskirkja consisted of three parts, the front was the iconic “rocket” tower, the middle was a more traditional rectangular structure with dark grey pitch roof and the third was a cylindrical structure with a dome that was shaped like a Viking war helmet.
In the front side of the church was a statue of a warrior, Leif Ericson. The more we read about Leif Ericson the more confuse we got, the only relationship between Leif Ericson and Iceland was that he “might” be born in Iceland.
After exploring the exterior we went into the church. Entry into the church was free of charge.
We bought tickets to go up to the observation tower of the church. The ticket price was 1300 ISK per persons. Once we exited the lift that brought us up to the observation deck we saw a system of bells. There was three big bells and 29 smaller bells. The big bells had names! Hallgrímur, Guðríður and Steinunn, the names of the great poet Hallgrímur, his wife and their daughter.
The observation deck and bell system of HallgrímskirkjaWe had a great view of Reykjavik from the observation deck. We walked round the deck, looking out from different windows. Getting birdeye’s view of Reykjavik north, south, east and west.
Views of Reykjavik from the observation deck
Stay in Reykjavík
Our stay for two nights was in Reykjavik downtown. It was on the street that faced Hallgrímskirkja, one of the most famous landmarks of Reykjavik. In that two days we were able to view Hallgrimskirkja over and over again from different angles at different part of the days.
Our stay was “Skólavörðustígur Apartments” booked from Booking.com. It costed Eur289 for two nights. The apartment had a large bedroom, a sitting room, a huge kitchen and toilet. This apartment could easily accommodate 4 persons (enough beds for four). There were only two of us so we got to enjoy the large spaces.
The fully equipped kitchen was great as we were able to prepare our meals with ease. Our host had provided coffee and tea and various cooking condiments and whipping up simple breakfast and dinner were so quick.
The toilet was nice and clean and hot water was plentiful!
The downside of this apartment was that there was no lift to our apartment which was on the upper level. So the bringing up our luggage when checking in and out was a bit of an hazzle. Another downside was no free parking in the immediate vicinity.
We parked car further away about 500m (8 minutes walk) from the apartment in a blue parking zone with a cheaper parking rates. When we checkout we brought our bags down to the roadside just outside our stay, one of us stayed to guard our bags while the other went to pick up the car and drive it all the way to the apartment before loading our bags and off we went to our next destination!