Iceland Day 3: Reykjavik to Akureyri

Today we had a leisurely morning and then caught a midday flight from Reykjavik to Akureyri.

Our morning was lovely because Rhodri could get some work done, the kids could write in their Adventure Diaries for school, and I could organize our stuff. It was very nice to not go rushing off and to just have breakfast in our slippers and then catch the taxi at 11:30am, only 40 minutes before our flight. 

We saw a double rainbow at the airport which stretched completely across the sky. I couldn't take a photo that captured the whole thing, but here are R & T in front of the terminal.

Reykjavik domestic airport with a double rainbow

It is such a small domestic airport - when we walked up with our bags, the desk lady just asked for our last name and then gave us the boarding cards! She didn't ask where we were going or anything!  We thought that was quite funny.

It was a good flight, though we couldn't see much because of the clouds. Upon landing in Akureyri, Tryfan immediately got down in the snow to write his name.

 

Our taxi driver met us at baggage claim with a sign that said "Lewis" and he whisked us away to our hotel, the Hotel Akureyri. We checked in around 1:30pm and made a plan for the afternoon. Originally we were going to go downhill skiing, but then when we arrived we found out that the place closes at 4pm so we wouldn't have that much time there. We decided to go for lunch and then swimming instead. We stumbled onto this lovely little cafe called Bláa kannan café and had a great lunch there.

Gangnam style in the Bláa kannan café 

Then we walked up a rather steep and icy hill to get to the most fabulous outdoor swimming place! It had 2 waterslides, 4 big hot tubs of varying temperatures, 2 big pools, and a couple of kiddie wading pools. None of the pools had cold water, which was good since it was snowing!

One of the big pools and the 2 waterslides at "Sundlaug akureyrar" on a snowy day similar to ours today!

We spent a couple of hours watersliding, swimming and hot tubbing before feeling hungry enough to go find food again.

Walking back down the hill into town after swimming. Our hotel was to the right of this big church on the right side of the photo.

We ended up going back to the Bláa kannan café , this time to have cake and coffee even though it was near to dinner time! We had the great fortune to meet Lene, who is the lady I have been corresponding with in the planning of this trip.  Although she works for Nonni Travel, she is not a typical travel agent type person. Actually she is an artist and a tanner and has a farm in the countryside where she works with animal skins and animal hair/wool. I am so intrigued by her and her work, and this brief visit in the cafe was not enough.

Anyway, after our lovely meeting we finally went out for dinner (though Lene could not join us). We chose this place called Strikid which was absolutely superb in terms of food quality and not too crazy expensive, especially given the rooftop location!

Finally we walked back to the hotel and went to sleep, ready for an early day tomorrow.