We’re on our way to Reykjavik for an Icelandic adventure. Here’s an account of Day 1 our hotel and where we found food. Enjoy !
Manchester Airport
I do like Manchester airport. I think any visit to an airport (when you’re not just dropping off or picking up) is exciting as its usually the start of an adventure.
We tend to stick to the same routine when at the airport and I’m sure most people do:
- Check in bags – always worried incase you’d accidentally packed explosives and hadn’t realised!
- Head through security – beaming with pride if you walk through the scanner without it beeping
- Arrive in departures lounge – Skoosh a bit of perfume as you walk through the shopping area
- Check board – Stay in lounge
- Head for food/drinkies – Prepare to part with the best part of £30 for 2 drinks and a panini.
- Check board – Stay in lounge
- Have a wander through WH Smith – Thinking to yourself, have I brought enough books?
- Have a wander through Boots – Buy last min lipstick
- Check board – Head to departure gate
Reykjavík here we come.
We’re on our way
The flight was good, I had forgotten to take my earphones out of my suitcase so I watched The MEG with subtitles (Thankfully I’d seen it before). I think it definitely lacked something being silent but it was entertaining and less cheesy than the vocal version. The only other point of note on the flight was when we went to get the bus transfer tickets into the city. Now we knew things in Iceland were going to be expensive but 2 x return bus tickets for a 45 min ride – £87.00 INCREDIBLE!!! Thoughts immediately went to the Alibus in Italy €5 each way or the local bus in Sri Lanka 22p for the ride of your life into the city. The price surprised me but we bought them and after all the bus would take us straight to our hotel, no walking through the streets with bags so that was a definitely a good thing, wasn’t it? :-).
We found the FLYBUS right out side the airport arrivals and soon we were winging our way to the city. The first impressions of Iceland is that it’a a barren grey land with no specific features, no trees, no commercialisation, just a long tarmac road from the airport to Reykjavik.
It started raining when we were on the bus and I was glad I had my coat handy as it was a bit chilly too. The 45 mins on the bus passed fairly quickly and we were deposited out side our hotel as promised.
Where are we staying?
Centrehotel Midgardur was a crisp clean looking building and after checking in we found ourselves in a crisp clean room facing the square opposite. Now after travelling for the last few hrs we were quite peckish and keen to see some of the city so we saw what we thought was a restaurant/bar across the road and gave it a quick look on trip advisor Hlemmur Matholl.
Out & About in Reykjavik
Luckily our hotel was across the road from a foodie type group of restaurants branded as “All types of food for all types of people”. Not quite street food but if you live in Manchester it was similar to Mackie Mayors in town. 10 or 12 different artisan restaurants and bars with seating round the outsides. It was in an old converted bus station and it was quite quirky.
We opted for the tacos from Fuego and a gin and tonic (Chris had the Easter blond beer) and the food was delicious. Expensive but delicious, we were learning fast!! The rain had eased off so we decided to venture out and head for the centre of the old town and the harbour. The tacos were nice but not quite filling and we had heard that lamb stew/soup in a bowl was an Icelandic delicacy so we headed for the Icelandic Street Food restaurant to see if we could try that out. Such a touristy thing to do but it did sound good.
We found the Icelandic Street Food restaurant fairly easily and they had a sister bar called the Icelandic craft beer bar a few doors down. The clever thing here was that if you bought your soup from the food place you could get it to take away and walk down the street with it to their bar and they gave you a free beer token. You absolutely needed the beer token because the soup/stew in a bread roll cost approx £13. Not quite the street food prices we were used to having recently been in Sri Lanka but it was tasty enough. Chris had the lamb stew and I had the seafood soup swimming with scallops and prawns. Very tasty. So that’s exactly what we did and we enjoyed our soup in the quirky bar that was a bit like sitting in someones living room.
After a long day of travelling and an early start in the morning we decided to make our way back to the hotel which was a 15 – 20 min walk from the harbour but really pleasant walk past all the Iceland shops, restaurants and bars and soon we were tucked up in bed awaiting tomorrow’s adventure which would start at 8am (alarm set for 6.30). Drifted off to sleep thinking………I wonder what’s for breakfast!
Coming up is the following things we did whilst in Iceland –
- Snaefellsnes Penisula Tour
- Skogafoss
- Seljalandsfoss
- Solheimajokull Glacier
- Black Sand Beach
- Black Church
- A humpback Whale bonanza