After a busy day on the road outside the city, it was nice to have a full free day to explore Reykjavik. I knew the day would be sprinkled with, well...sprinkles, so I planned to find places I could explore indoors and just take cab rides in between.
I started out at the National Museum of Iceland. It was very modern and very wheelchair accessible, and I decided to take advantage of the guided-tour-by-headset. The bottom floor holds the photography gallery, where they had an exhibit of the history of postcards in Iceland. This was a fascinating way to see the history of the country through a different way of displaying images. In a smaller separate section, they had an exhibit by a photographer who visited each of the country's last remaining manned weather stations and took photos of the sea from each station. The two floors above displayed artifacts and videos of Iceland's history from it's discovery in the 9th century until the present day. Afterwards I had a nice lunch in the cafe, and an older American gentleman struck up a conversation with me. It turned out that he and his wife live in Longwood, FL--only a 15-minute drive from my home! How crazy is that?!
After the museum, I took a cab to the Harpa concert hall for their tour. That building is one of the most incredible displays of architecture I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the great economic collapse of 2008 hit smack in the middle of the building's construction, so the budget got slashed and some design elements had to be changed. We got to see all the halls except for the large main hall because there was an event going on there, but the elements of lighting and acoustics were the same in the smaller halls we were able to see. We also got to go up to the top floor and see the VIP lounge--and the accompanying views of the Reykjavik harbor.
After the Harpa tour, I had to book it on my scooter to the next place because (a) I was running late, and (b) it was starting to drizzle. Within a few minutes I arrived at the Bryggjan Brewhouse, a local brewery where they hold short beer tours/lessons three days a week. Over the phone they told me it would take an hour, but since I was the only one, the whole thing took about...ten minutes. But the guy was nice and I got free beer samples, so it was okay! I stayed to have dinner, and I had probably the best salmon dish of my life. While I was waiting outside for my taxi, my tour guide from the day before walked in with his friend! I guess it qualifies as a small town when your country capital's population is only 150,000.
I was tired after a busy day, and had just planned to go back to my room to take a hot shower and read before bed. I knew my hotel bathroom wasn't accessible in the classic US sense, but that reality hit when I had to call up the night manager to help me figure out the hot water. There are no grab bars or handrails anywhere, and the "roll in shower" is just a tiny corner of the bathroom with a plastic chair thrown in there. The manager pointed out that this was, in fact, not an accessible room OR bathroom as advertised. They couldn't move me to the other such room because it was identical. I reported all this to the tour company that booked me so they wouldn't refer future clients there. The hotel was very apologetic, and they're working to figure out a solution (i.e. figuring out how much to refund me because they can't move me to another room or hotel). We'll see what happens, but in the meantime I'm getting by with sponge/washcloth baths and a positive attitude!
I started out at the National Museum of Iceland. It was very modern and very wheelchair accessible, and I decided to take advantage of the guided-tour-by-headset. The bottom floor holds the photography gallery, where they had an exhibit of the history of postcards in Iceland. This was a fascinating way to see the history of the country through a different way of displaying images. In a smaller separate section, they had an exhibit by a photographer who visited each of the country's last remaining manned weather stations and took photos of the sea from each station. The two floors above displayed artifacts and videos of Iceland's history from it's discovery in the 9th century until the present day. Afterwards I had a nice lunch in the cafe, and an older American gentleman struck up a conversation with me. It turned out that he and his wife live in Longwood, FL--only a 15-minute drive from my home! How crazy is that?!
After the museum, I took a cab to the Harpa concert hall for their tour. That building is one of the most incredible displays of architecture I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the great economic collapse of 2008 hit smack in the middle of the building's construction, so the budget got slashed and some design elements had to be changed. We got to see all the halls except for the large main hall because there was an event going on there, but the elements of lighting and acoustics were the same in the smaller halls we were able to see. We also got to go up to the top floor and see the VIP lounge--and the accompanying views of the Reykjavik harbor.
After the Harpa tour, I had to book it on my scooter to the next place because (a) I was running late, and (b) it was starting to drizzle. Within a few minutes I arrived at the Bryggjan Brewhouse, a local brewery where they hold short beer tours/lessons three days a week. Over the phone they told me it would take an hour, but since I was the only one, the whole thing took about...ten minutes. But the guy was nice and I got free beer samples, so it was okay! I stayed to have dinner, and I had probably the best salmon dish of my life. While I was waiting outside for my taxi, my tour guide from the day before walked in with his friend! I guess it qualifies as a small town when your country capital's population is only 150,000.
I was tired after a busy day, and had just planned to go back to my room to take a hot shower and read before bed. I knew my hotel bathroom wasn't accessible in the classic US sense, but that reality hit when I had to call up the night manager to help me figure out the hot water. There are no grab bars or handrails anywhere, and the "roll in shower" is just a tiny corner of the bathroom with a plastic chair thrown in there. The manager pointed out that this was, in fact, not an accessible room OR bathroom as advertised. They couldn't move me to the other such room because it was identical. I reported all this to the tour company that booked me so they wouldn't refer future clients there. The hotel was very apologetic, and they're working to figure out a solution (i.e. figuring out how much to refund me because they can't move me to another room or hotel). We'll see what happens, but in the meantime I'm getting by with sponge/washcloth baths and a positive attitude!
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