As our flight from Heathrow was at 7.40am we had booked the Premier Inn at T4 for the night before. Not that I could complain as using Avios I had managed to book the 4 return flights for the princely sum of £1 each.
We had mostly packed by early Sunday and found time to nip and do some chores before we returned for a Roast Dinner that Karen had left cooking. Just after 4.30pm we left home and after dropping the visiting Kevin back at his hotel went to pick an excited Barry & Ellie up for the journey to the airport.
It was an easy drive down and we arrived early at Sunny’s where he took us to the hotel before taking our car back to his to park for the week. The Premier Inn was fine and certainly did us well for the night. Karen had made us some rolls using the left-over meat from the lunchtime roast for our ‘tea’ whilst Barry & Ellie went down to the restaurant for their food.
Our alarm was set for a stupidly early 4am the following morning so that Karen had time to wash her hair before meeting Sunny again at 5am for him to take us to T5 for our flights. He is such a helpful chap to do that for us each time.
I was annoyed at the queue at the baggage drop off desks as that early time there were not enough staff manning the desks. However, supervisors soon intervened and we were moved along to more desks that were open.
We all got through Security with no incident and made our way down to the Club Aspire Lounge. I was pleased that we were soon in there as it was Barry & Ellie’s first experience of being in a Lounge. Sadly though that none of us fancied taking advantage of drinks from the bar at that unearthly hour. We did all have some of the hot breakfast in one form or another.
The gate was a long walk from the Lounge and then we found that for the first time for us at Heathrow it involved getting on a bus to the plane itself. Not only that but it was a long ride on the bus. It felt as though the plane itself was parked at Gatwick.
On board we were very pleased to find that in both of rows of 3 that we were allocated had a spare seat and so were all able to spread out. I had a couple of small dozes and read my kindle to pass the time on the 3-hour flight. I also got a great view of Edinburgh as the clouds parted as we flew over it.
The formalities at Reykjavik were quick and easy and our bags were coming round as we got to baggage claim. Barry suggested we buy some beer and wine from the duty free as we walked through it as he had read it would be cheaper to buy it here, so we duly did.
After sorting out the hire car with a very helpful young lady at the car rental counter we started to make our way out when Barry took a fancy to a bakery we were passing and suggested that he & Ellie grabbed some lunch before we got the car. As we were in no desperate hurry, Karen & I sat down with them and had the last of the rolls she had prepared.
After a game of hide and seek trying to find the rental car in the car park in some squally rain showers, we loaded up the Dacia Duster once we had found it. I was rather concerned it was a manual drive with the gear stick on the wrong side. I always find these are a challenge to drive and it takes a larger amount of concentration on my part for some reason. Nevertheless, with Barry in charge of the navigation we soon made our way across the volcanic landscape. Iceland was not looking at its best in the still intermittent squally rain.
We drove past an Iceland store in Iceland which amused us all. It was about a 50-minute drive to our hotel in the centre of Reykjavik which we found easily. We were able to check into our rooms early on the ground floor of the Storm Hotel. The rooms were not large but adequate. They felt new, clean and well looked after. We had a quick turnaround and set out to explore the Icelandic capital on foot. It was only a relative short walk to the main shopping area and its pretty old town.
The drizzly rain was intermittent and more annoying than effective in getting us wet. We made our way to the Hallgrimskirkja Church. This is a magnificent looking construction only finally completed in 1986 built on the outside to resemble basalt lava towers. In front the entrance stood a statue of Leif Ericsson who I learnt was the first and true discoverer of America. Why had I not heard of him until now? He was depicted looking like a proper Viking.
The church though was temporarily closed until 3.30pm as a funeral was taking place inside. So, we decided to walk down to the older part of town where the oldest parliament building in the world was situated. The building itself was austere and sat overlooking a frozen lake which had loads of ducks on it.
Rather lazily I relied upon Barry to be our guide and route planner today. I had not found the time to do any research ahead of us arriving. I blame our recent long trip which had so many stops that I couldn’t do them all ahead of time and just sorted it out when we arrived.
Barry navigated us back to the church up along the main shopping street. I was rather taken by what I had seen of Reykjavik. It was pretty in parts, walkable and everyone was friendly. Ellie saw a mug in a shop which also described it. It had ‘So Cold’ on one side and ‘So Expensive’ on the other. Some prices in the shops were just ridiculous whilst others were what I deemed to be Hawaii like. The levels at which you swallowed as you paid because you had no other choice.
At the church I sorted the tickets for all of us to go up the tower. The views were good in all directions. The bells rang whilst we were up there which was loud and quite something.
A coffee stop was then required but heading back along the mile walk to the Hotel we didn’t pass any at all that were open. Instead, we opted for some refreshments from the Hotel and sat in the lobby to drink them.
After a short turnaround we headed out again in rainy conditions to a highly rated food market in the old bus terminus that was close by. It was a jolly good decision. There were lots of different food choices much like Yalm in Norwich. It was busy and the atmosphere was good with an even mixture of tourists and locals. The food was excellent. Three of us went for Pizzas whilst Ellie had Tacos. Ice Creams of various descriptions were had by the others for their desserts. We sat a while and chatted before agreeing we would come back here to eat again. With that and after such an early start we made our way back to our cosy hotel for the night.
From what I have seen so far, I quite like Iceland. It had been a good day.
