July 30-31, 2025: Departing Birmingham/Arriving Reykjavik

Using our reserved Uber, we travelled to the airport and amazingly departed on time for the first leg of our travels; arriving in Atlanta ahead of schedule.  Atlanta departure was on time for JFK with an on-time arrival.  Our 11:50 pm departure for Reykjavik was slightly delayed to 12:15 am, but that posed no problem since our next stop was our destination.  Naturally, we were quite tired by this time of day and looked forward to settling into our not-so-comfortable seats for the 5-hour flight.  We did get a light snack with beverages early in the flight and nothing thereafter.  I managed to sleep about 3 hours, which wasn’t enough.  But, you take what you can get on an overseas flight.  

Our first glimpse of Iceland after dropping through the clouds was coming in over water and then a very green land mass.  

We had an on-time landing at 9:30 am.  Once through customs, we were in a very crowded terminal.  During the height of tourist season, Reykjavik airport has about 500 flights/day.  We took a taxi into the city, which was about 50 km from the airport and not inexpensive.  Our driver, who was from Afghanistan and moved to Iceland a few years ago said that the total number of Iceland inhabitants was about 450,000 and about 260,000 live in Reykjavik.  It is Iceland’s capital and largest city is located on the country's southwest coast at the head of Faxafloi Bay. Settled in 877 A.D., Reykjavik has grown into an important seaport and center of government and education with theatres, museums and observatories. Interestingly, this modern city still chooses to use water from nearby hot springs to heat all its buildings.

Fortunately, we were able to check in at the hotel to catch up on some lost sleep.  

After about a 2-hr nap, we got up and decided to explore the city.  City center was only about a 5-minute walk from our hotel, and we headed in that direction to the main street,  This led to the Rainbow Street and up to Hallgrimskirkja (Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Iceland), 

which has a very unique modern, architectural appearance with its very tall, vertical,  stepped “basalt-like” pillars forming the façade of the church and a reminder of the Icelandic landscape.  It is quite prominent on the Reykjavik skyline.  During the months of July and August, there are weekly organ concerts on the 5,275-pipe pipe organ.  I imagine the sound with the acoustics of the church interior must be outstanding. 

We spent the next hour or so just exploring the area with its many artistic boutiques and authentic Icelandic souvenir and trinket shops.  Tourism is Iceland's main source of income. 

The culinary scene is eclectic and awesome with lots of restaurant choices in this area of the city.  There were lots of fish and chips places, but the other seafood choices looked amazing.  We found a place, MAR Seafood, located on a side street that we chose for an early dinner (had no breakfast nor lunch).  

They serve fresh Icelandic seafood and traditional seafood pans, which is a complete seafood meal served in a stainless-steel pan.  

Bev had the shrimp and pasta and I the halibut with wild mushrooms.  Both were excellent and were accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Grigio. 

We walked to the Harpa concert hall across the street from the hotel.  Interestingly, the glass exterior is composed of what appear to be prisms, which give it a very unique appearance.  

Walking along the harbor we had great views and could even see the Celebrity ship in the distance.

We then returned to the hotel and ended the day with Icelandic beers in the Sky lounge located on top of the hotel.  From there we had good views of the harbor area. 

 Early to bed tonight to catch up on sleep.