Most everyone else in our party slept in a little bit after getting back at almost midnight from our Golden Circle tour with Birkir. I on the other hand, love it when a ship overnights in a port so that I can get up early the next day and walk through the city. (One of my best photo walks ever was in Québec last October when we overnighted on Summit). More and more cruise lines are doing this (overnighting in cities) and you can get off and on whenever you want all night long. This was a good day to do that but I really missed that early morning golden light I had when we were in Edinburgh and Dublin.

I got up at 5:00 am and headed out to walk the seaside walkway into downtown Reykjavik but the light outside was already like 10:30 in the morning as you can see from my pics. I got some decent stuff and then headed back to the ship to shower and meet Kathleen and others in our group to take a taxi back into downtown to see some more of the city. My pics and their captions will pretty much tell the tale on that. Don’t forget to click on the first one and view them as a slide show. And if you want to see more, check them out on Flickr by clicking here.

We were back on the ship by 2:00 pm and Reflection set sail for Akureyri at 3:00. It was a pretty great day considering how little sleep was involved. Thursday, I will post all about our travels in Akureyri, in the north. And we cross the Arctic Circle! 

Hallgrímskirkja—this church dominates the Reykjavik skyline

Sun Voyager—Huge 1990 stainless-steel sculpture of a boat by Jón Gunnar Árnason, set on granite beside the sea.

Reykjavik’s version of the bridge in Paris

The green lock kind of drew my lens like a magnet

Harpa Concert Hall

Noticed this ship coming in. Not sure what it was.

Turned out to be a small cruise ship. We met some people who were onboard later at coffee.

Sun Voyager from a different angle

A sculpture along the walkway. Looked different on every side

See what I mean?

Viking Sky coming into the harbor. This is the ship that had the engine failiure earlier this year.

The Hofdi House built in 1909, the home of Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson also hosted an iconic political summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbatsjov

The lupine was everywhere and in full bloom

The end of my walk. Almost back to the ship.

Out later with Kathleen saw this photo shoot in front of Hallgrímskirkja

Hallgrímskirkja up close

Inside Hallgrímskirkja we found a small chamber orchestra rehearsing

Inside Hallgrímskirkja Cassie and Jamie look at the ceiling of this magnificent church

Above the altar in Hallgrímskirkja

I love taking photos of artists as work.

Such great expressions

See what I mean

Outside of Hallgrímskirkja is this incredible statue of Leif Erickson

Kathleen found a friend. Hey, I have to take these tourist photos once in a while.

Great street decoration

This is a real place. Seriously.

I never did find out who these statues represent.

A closeup of Harpa Concert Hall to end our stay. We went inside but the photos didn’t come out as well as I would have liked.