Walking Around Reykjavik, Boats, Swimming And Markets

It looks like a Tim Burton location. It was just some run down house in the city side streets.

After spending 2 days in a car travelling to and from Hofn we decided to spend the next two days in Reykjavik's city centre. The sun decided to finally come out so we spent the days walking around the town, eating delicious food and swimming in a couple of Iceland's many heated pools.

On this morning we decided to walk half an hour to a try out one of the local heated pools. We had heard and read a lot about swimming in Iceland. It was a "must do" according to many people. 

Christmas tree houses.
Despite the blue skies, it was still pretty freezing, but when isn't it? Also we were walking along the ocean with a strong breeze coming off it, typical Iceland winds.

This seemed like a graveyard for cars more than a car park. How do you completely obliterate both tyres on one side???

This was the outside of the swimming pool Seltjarness. It looks pretty sad from the outside, but we didn't care. By the time we reached the pool we were a mix of sweaty and freezing. I can't explain it, it just happens in Iceland. Needless to say we couldn't wait to be in the pool in this minus 4 degree weather. Were we crazy? No, no we were not. As long as you are in the warm water it is amazing. When you want to change pools, that's when it's crazy. Rushing from one warm pool to the next hotter one in strong winds and minus weather.

Unfortunately, like most pools in Reykjavik, cameras weren't allowed in the swimming area, so we can't show you what it looked inside. This is a photo of the inside of Seltjarness taken off the internet. (Copyright unknown).

Seltjarness was made up of three little pools each with varying temperatures, ranging from the 30ºC pool that you start in to the 45ºC pool that you end up in. I also forced Lloyd and Adam, the sauna haters, into a quick stink in the sauna, after a few days at the pools they were both quite fond of the saunas. The majority of people at the pool were in their twilight years or getting darn close to them. It's so amazing that this can be a part of everyday life. I want naturally heated volcano water spas at my house. I also want a house. They also had a small water slide, a lap pool and slightly bigger spa with jets.

Also common in a lot of these places is at least one pool filled with salty sea water. Seltjarness differed from other places as all water in the pools there were salt water.

This was the other pool we visited the next day, Laugardalslaug. This was our favourite pool. Lloyd and I woke up at 7am and walked 45 minutes in the cold and the dark to get there for opening at 8 (on weekends and 6.30am on weekdays).

Once again no cameras so we stole this photo off the internet to show you what it looked like inside (Copyright unknown).

This place was massive...and not even close to being this busy during our visit.

It was so cold on the first morning we visited, everything was covered in frost and ice and it was still dark out at 9am. I'm talking freezing cold and we were sitting in a 40 degree spa watching snow fall around us. It was magical. We were sitting in a pool, it was -4ºC out and 40ºC in and it was SNOWING! So bizarre and something we will never forget. We were so enchanted by this experience and the awesome water slide that we returned the next day with Adam. This time we pretty much spent our entire time racing each other on the water slide (not at the same time... We were using the lap clock to time our individual records). For those who ever do visit Laugardalslaug, the official record for going down the slide was an incredible 17 seconds set by Adam. We'd recommend trying to break the record. The sauna here was also really nice as is the salt water pool. It's a refreshing change after stewing in 45ºC water for an hour or so. 

So as you may have gathered, swimming pools in Iceland are a lot of fun. There is another side to these pools though, an awkward side for those shy types. The strict rule in all pools in Iceland, including at the Blue Lagoon, is that before you enter you have to go into the change rooms and shower stark naked in front of everyone else, using the provided soap to wash all your bits and hair. This may seem fine for some, but for others this may be very scary.  They even provide pictures of where on your body to wash. Hilarious. Word of advice - no one cares what you look like naked in these places. Plus it's all worth it to swim in these magical pools. In fact when I (Sophie) was showering there were about 30 or so girls/ women ranging in ages from 7 to 80. Everyone says hello and good morning to each other as if they'd forgotten they were nudies. The kids are respectful to the elders, momentarily stopping their raucous singing between themselves to say good morning before continuing. 

Walking back home with Paris looking down on us. 

DAMN! DAIM Ice cream! And sprite for the vodka... Because soda water is a tad strange here.

This is where we stayed with Michael and his dog Rosa.

Local street art.

More local street art with Sigur Ros lyrics.

A run down and abandoned ship.

It's pretty awesome. Boats have to be one of the coolest things, they look so otherworldly to me.

The harbour.

The boat we saw from our bedroom window every morning.

More bike racks.

Icelandic fish and chips did a decent feed, though it was another one of those acclaimed "BEST" moments that fell short. I am from Margaret River, I have had amazing fish and chips, these were good. They were however healthier. They were battered in beer and spelt and they don't fry their chips. They are also organic.

Inside.

They pride themselves on their range of sauces made using skyr and fresh ingredients. They call it skyronnaise and a tasting plate was 800ISK. They were all amazing, though the sauces on the right were more popular. We demolished them. Skyr contains virtually no fat, though when teamed with fat (it is traditionally served with cream and berries) it is a good source of vitamin D. True!

Onion rings and spelt battered. You get to choose what fish you have, we had cod.

Chunky garlic chips. Baked not fried. The beer was also tasty. All in all a good and decent priced meal in Iceland. Fish and chips set us back about $10-$11 AUS and a beer is just shy of $5. Bargain! (By Iceland standards).

Icelandic Fish and Chips website here.

Our favourite Laundromat!

The weekend brunch is pretty damn good. It costs 2290ISK and is enough food to set you on your way for the day.
This was Lloyd's dirty brunch. It was scrambled eggs, amazing (according to him, not the menu) spiced  sausages, bacon, fried potatoes, cheese, pancakes, grilled tomato, chocolate butter, skyr/ greek yoghurt, fruit, a selection of rye and baguette bread and a glass of ginger and mango health drink. An epic start to any day in Iceland.

This is the clean brunch, nice word for vegetarian. It was everything in the dirty brunch but with the sausages and bacon traded for a salad and hummus. I also got a berry smoothie. Yummo!

The website for Laundromat can be found here.

This is the door to the popular weekend markets that take place by the hotdog stand and the harbour. It looks pretty dodgy...

Inside the market.

The markets were made up of lots of second hand clothing stalls and bric a brac. It was almost like being in a giant garage sale. There wasn't much gold to be had, but it was fun to walk around and see all the people with there hand made fleecy, Icelandic jumpers and old VHS tapes.

There were also a bunch of band t-shirt stalls and a fish market.

Lucky dips!

Some ridiculously scary merchandise at the markets.

I know for a fact that I'd win at all these games.

The band t-shirt stalls came with creepy masks. Near this stand was a stall selling used WWII uniforms and hats and a bunch of replica stuff. It seemed odd for a market stall in Reykjavik.

A statue of Ingolfur Arnarson. The man said to have founded Iceland in 874.Though apparently some archaeological findings have some evidence proving it was perhaps settled a little earlier. 

I moved a huge bin so it wouldn't be in frame and Lloyd ended up shooting from the side. Boo.

Some Reykjavik yarn bombing.

Lake Tjornin

Frikirkjan Church. This beautiful church is known as the Free Church and is a Lutheran parish. It is situated on lake Tjornin and is occasionally used as a venue for live music shows. Perhaps the most famous being a 2006 Sufjan Steven's concert. Read about it here.

 We thought it was unusual architecture for Iceland.

Someone's window. Bonsais and cacti.

Hallgrímskirkja. I know we've written about this before, but these are a few photos from our trip up to the lookout of the church. In case you missed our other post on the church you can read it here. 

They obviously had a bad experience.

The elevator brings you to this level, but if you take the stairs you end up in a run down part of the tower with a pretty good view.

The stairs lead here. It doesn't look pretty but the view from the windows was.

The view of Esja, the city and the sea

Inside the church.

There was an organ concert on this day. We witnessed the 'star' practicing. What an incredible instrument.

After visiting the church we decided tonight was going to be the night we see the North Lights so we set off to hire a car. Read about Aurora Borealis in our next blog post!

Also why not read this to get you into the Christmas spirit. It's a little about some Iceland traditions and a few of their bizarre Christmas characters.