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| Naustahvilft in Isafjørdur |
Time for Embarkation!
The day of embarkation brought us another beautiful day, so we opted to walk 2.8 miles to the bay and pier. It may sound crazy with two suitcases in tow, but really, it's two 30 minute walks with a lovely stop for coffee in between.
Embarkation can be stressful, but this one was one of the smoothest we've experienced. I guess Cruise lines can learn too! After walking around the ship and getting our bearings (let's be honest, it usually takes until day 6 to figure everything out) and unpacking, we found a great spot at the rear of the ship for the sail away.
Isafjørdur
We awoke to the ship navigating through two colossal terraces of sheer rock to reach the port of Isafjørdur. At a population of 2700, it is the largest settlement in the Westfjords region. Surprisingly, considering the remoteness of its location and its compact size, Isafjordur presents itself as a modern and lively place to visit, offering several cafes and restaurants. The area around the pier has some major improvements in progress.
For this stop we opted to be on our own vs taking a tour. We walked to a few sights found on Wanderlog including the Old Town (Neðstikaupstaður), which features some of Iceland's oldest 18th-century timber houses, Kuml monument, Seamen's Monument, and Jónsgarður Park, home to a famous Whalebone Arch made from the jawbones of a blue whale.
Eventually we found a road just outside the port that leads up to a viewpoint overlooking the town and fjord — the views are worth it. Across the bay is the Troll's seat, also known as Naustahvilft. So we learned that trolls in Iceland are supposedly very large. Naustahvilft is a unique geological feature in the Kirkjubolsfjall mountain overlooking Isafjordur in Iceland. Legend has it that a troll turned to stone while seeking shelter from the sun, creating the depression that resembles a throne. The photo at the top of this page (found online, as my photo was blurry!) is the seat...man, that's a big troll.
Along the bay we encountered a series of poems etched into metal plates and mounted on rocks, works by five poets in five different languages secured along the Ísafjörður seafront. Below is the only one in English.
Our last stop was on the way back to the pier, and as we meandered the streets of an industrial area we searched for Dokkan Brugghús, which holds the distinction of being the first and only microbrewery in the Westfjords region. Based on my research the brewery was supposedly closed that day, and I thought, WHY would you be closed with a cruise ship and 3000 passengers in port? Luckily, the schedule online was WRONG, and we stopped in for a taste. Eventually the placed filled up as passengers made their way back to the ship. We met a couple and their mother from St. Paul and chatted about breweries.
A great start to our Icelandic cruise!
Akureyri
Our next stop, Akureyri, also known as the Capital of the North, is the second largest urban area in Iceland at about 20,000 people. Hemmed in by the 37-mile long Eyjafjörður, Akureyri is sheltered from the ocean winds and embraced by mountains on three sides. Late 19th-century wooden houses impart a sense of history, and the twin spires of a modern Lutheran church rising on a green hill near the waterfront, provide a focal point.
We opted for an excursion (that is, bus trip) to Godafoss and the Botanical Gardens. Our guide was a kind older man, formerly a dentist from the area, and lived there most of his life. Boy did he love to tell stories.
On the 30 minute drive to Godafoss, our guide shared an important story about the falls. In the year 1000 AD, Iceland faced a dangerous split between Christianity and Norse paganism that threatened to spark a civil war. The national parliament, called the Althing (mentioned in our post about Reykjavik), asked the pagan chieftain and Lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði (yeah, that's his name) to make the final choice for the country. After a few days of intense thought, he decided that Christianity would become the official religion of Iceland. To keep the peace, he added a compromise: people could still practice paganism in private. On his journey home from the parliament, Þorgeir stopped at the great waterfall. He tossed his carved wooden idols of the Norse gods into the churning rapids to show his complete devotion to the new Christian faith. Locals then named the site Goðafoss to remember the day the old gods went over the edge.
After making our way back to Akureyri, we stopped in at the Botanical Gardens. The site started as agricultural land, and in 1910, the town set the land aside to build a public space. The town gave the project to the Akureyri Park Society, an association made entirely of local housewives and women, led notably by Anna Schiöth. The women wanted to beautify the town, create entertainment spaces, and plant flowers and trees. The park officially opened in 1912 as Iceland's very first public park. It now covers just over nine acres, and has over 7000 different plant species. It really is spectacular, with lupines in colors I've never seen, spectacular foxglove, unique kale varieties, and godetia, which look like azaleas. Amazing.
We visited two churches, and for the first time in a very long time, the Catholic church was the most unadorned. The first pictures below are from St. Peter's Church. The second church, just down the street, was the Lutheran Church Akureyrarkirkja, strikingly similar to Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik. For decades, the widely accepted story was that the beautiful window directly behind the altar came from Coventry Cathedral in England. The story goes that in 1939, anticipating German air raids, Coventry Cathedral took apart its historic stained-glass windows and hid them in the English countryside. On November 14, 1940, the Luftwaffe heavily bombed Coventry, leaving its historic cathedral in ruins. Ironically, Akureyrarkirkja was consecrated in Iceland just three days after this bombing.
According to legend, some of the removed glass mysteriously wound up in a London antique shop during the war. An Icelandic merchant named Helgi Zoéga allegedly bought three panels and shipped them across the dangerous, U-boat-infested Atlantic. A prominent Akureyri town councilman spotted the glass in Reykjavík, realized one panel perfectly fit the dimensions of their newly built church, bought it, and had it installed in 1943. More recently, art historians and experts verified that all of Coventry Cathedral's removed medieval and Victorian glass was fully accounted for back in England.
So - even though the glass did not physically come from Coventry Cathedral, the myth was believed for so long that it forged a genuine, lasting friendship and cultural connection between the communities of Coventry and Akureyri. Today, the beautiful window remains a major highlight for visitors, serving as a unique symbol of wartime survival and international connection. I think that's cool.
While there were apparently two breweries and one pub we thought we wanted to visit, one brewery was not open until 2, one was actually a brewing operation, no tasting room, and one was more like a buffet for workers on the pier. Oh well, we got our steps more steps in and enjoyed the view of the fjords during the sail away.
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| Farið (The Flight), commemorating the history of commercial aviation in Akureyri (I assumed it was a whale's tail) |
Sometime that night, we officially crossed into the Arctic Circle, and we were presented with certificates. That's a thing? What do I do with these?
After a day at Sea, we found ourselves off the coast of northern Scotland for our next stop, Lerwick.
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