Our first full day in Iceland! We’re staying at Hotel Fron, right in the heart of Reykjavik’s central area. This city is amazing!
Basically today was get a lay of the land kind of day… Lots of walking around, seeing the sights and soaking in the funky architecture, cool shops and bars and eating as much of the food as possible!
Our rather large day consisted of:
started off at an enormous church and went to the bell tower for a spectacular 360 degree view of the city
had delicious coffee @ a cool cafe called Haiti – where they roast and grind their coffee direct from, well, Haiti
found the well known hotdog stand and tried their produce – twas delicious! So many celebrties have eaten here, so we added ourselves to the list
the port/harbour area and had lobster soup for lunch
did our washing at the uber cool Laundromat Cafe and had a drink (great concept this – do your washing downstairs, go upstairs for a drink/lunch)
checked out the Harper Concert Hall which is an amazing piece of architecture inside-and-out
had a drink in Bunk Bar and people watched
had dinner at a fine dining restaurant – one of the oldest buildings in Reykjavik – couldn’t bring ourselves to try the fermented shark sadly
checked out the many cool shops along the main strips
took photos of amazing street art and architecture
Here’s a few photos of our day!
Harper Concert HallInside the concert hall
Harper Concert Hall inside was as impressive as its exteriorHallgrimskirkja Church – took 38 years to buildPipe organ in the church – 15m tall & 5275 pipesInside the cathederalSpectacular views from the bell towerRainbow streets leading the way to the churchLunch @ Seabaron with lobster soup & Char Bleijka (fish)Our lunch destination – Seabaron. Didn’t go the whale that was on offer…Christmas store – open all year round!Our fine dining experience in IcelandBunk Bar, ReykjavikCute house in downtown Reykjavik
When you’re traveling between somewhat unusual places, travel time always takes longer as there’s stop-overs and lots of time in airports waiting for flights. That’s what today was.
We left our beautiful accommodation in Santorini with a bit of a heavy heart thinking perhaps we could have spent an extra day or 3 here, but that’ll likely be a common feeling we’ll experience more in the near future. As part of our car hire deal, we got to leave the car at the airport with the key under the front mat, doors left unlocked, which was bloody fantastic. Like many things in Santorini, it’s a bit of a case of close enough is good enough with the airport. It certainly adds to the charm, but there’s a few things that could be improved which would increase the level of comfort… such as a few ceiling fans in the waiting area so you can try and move the smell of passengers around a bit waiting in the unairconditioned old building.
From there – the day was pretty uneventful. Plenty of waiting in Athens airport, then we arrived thinking how bored we’ll be in Copenhagen Airport with another near 4-hour wait. Well, we were wrong about that! Basically Copenhagen has the most amazing airport we’ve come across. The floors are parquetry designed floorboards, there’s classic Danish design everywhere and the wings of the airport are themed totally differently. Simply put, it’s amazing. The only thing that trumps it? The fashion parade that is the Danish travelers. Never have we been more self-conscious about how poorly dressed we were (we dressed for comfort – big mistake) where as the Danes look like they just stopped in at one of the many, many high-end fashion boutiques the airport has to offer.
The airport is so good and the people so well dressed we’ve now put Copenhagen as a spot we’d love to come back to. Can’t say that about too many airports!
We finally got onto our flight with Icelandic Air. Now this is how to run a low-cost airline. There’s funny stuff galore – from the welcome video to the menu… it’s just superbly done and would 100% fly with them again just for their efforts.
Once we arrived at Iceland airport (it too very impressive), we grabbed our bags and proceeded to do some shopping at the largest duty free shop we’ve seen. Glen bought 3 x 6-packs of local beer as well as some travelling chocolate. No customs which was kinda weird!
First error for the trip was around the corner… Glen mistakingly assumed that the airport shown on Google Maps was the international airport which is literally 3km from the city centre. Ummm ,no, that is the domestic airport. The international one is a whopping 55km away. We didn’t price the taxi and given it was 10:30pm, we just jumped in. 15minutes in Glen asks the driver how far it is and then we learn. It ended up being the most expensive taxi ride of our lives at near-on $200, but oh well! Live and learn! After traveling for 18hrs, we were just happy to get to our very nice accommodation and get some sleep!
Sadly, our last day in Santorini. This place grows on you so quickly – only a few days back we were a bit aprehensive about the lack of footpaths, the millimetre gaps between passing cars/buses/vans and the huge number of tourists… but now? We feel as we’re the locals.
For our final day in this Greek paradise, we didn’t have a lot planned but we were keen to get a nice lunch in Oia, see where the donkeys are and if we can ride one and do some further exploring before heading to Katharos Lounge for dinner to watch the sunet from apparently one of the best spots on the island.
Katharos Lounge
Well we basically nailed all that and more…
We started off by checking out a location we spotted which we thought would be good for photos. Which spot isn’t, really… but this one gave a different perspective. What it did do was provide a pathway down to the harbour area and a whole new part of Oia we hadn’t seen. It also gave us a look at donkeys!!
We made our way down to the harbour, passed by the donkeys and learnt it was 10 euros to have a ride back up the 170-odd very wide steps up the cliff face. We had a drink at the bottom, centimetres away from the water and watched the nautical world go by. We had a nice chat with a young couple from Kentucky before preparing ourselves for the donkey ride!
Soph got given a white donkey to ride up – I got given what looked to be a clydesdale’s larger brother (poor thing clearly had some weight to carry up that cliff face) so no wonder it was a massive horse/donkey/mule combo. The 170-odd steps up were hilarious – it was non-stop laughing the whole way up. The steps are very wide/long, so you’re taking a good 2-3 strides per step and the donkeys know how to minimise effort so they go side-to-side and traverse the path. This meant lots of competition between the donkeys as the owner rode a 3rd donkey behind us. It was neck and neck up the hill with Soph’s steed narrowly winning. It was seriously amazing fun and something quite different – super pleased we did it!
From there, we fought the eastern European crowd who’d just got off a cruise liner and decided it was time for lunch. We found a great spot, tucked into more local cuisine and had a million dollar view to go with it.
lunch on our final day
The afternoon was a bit of a chill time, had a swim in our private pool, read a book and before we knew it, it was time to make our way down to Katharos Lounge to have Greek tapas, a drink and watch the amazing sunset. Unlike the previous night on the boat, there were no clouds so we were treated to what the locals call the “best sunset in the world”. I’m not sure about that, ours back home are pretty amazing, but with the clifftops and boats out in the blue waters, it’s not too an outlandish claim!
What a great way to finish our time in Santorini. Just a spectacular place and it offers something for everyone. Highly, highly recommend it and would love to come back!
We may or may not have fallen asleep at 9pm the previous night, so a 6:30am start to Sophie’s birthday was an unusual start for us both! Opened a couple of cards, Glen made breakfast and we sat outside whilst watching the sunrise strike the nearby island cliff faces. Soph read her book whilst Glen explored a nearby deserted church in the middle of nowhere.
My birthday present to Soph was a “semi-private sunset cruise around the island” but that didn’t start until the afternoon, so we had the morning to explore further. We headed back into Oia but went a different way along the clifftop and found a whole new set of cute shops, tiny laneways and of course, more amazing views! In fact, some of these were the best yet, particularly as on this side of the island, the accommodation snaked its way down the cliff deeper down than what we’d seen eariler. Just amazing architecture and skill to build houses on such incredible slopes.
But the highlight of the trip thus far was the sailing. We had booked a Santorini Sailing tour where we got picked up from our accommodation and taken back to the other end of the island to the port where our catermaran was awaiting us. It was a maximum of 12 people which made it quite intimiate and a great opportunity to chat. Tony, our skipper, was an expat Englishman who had sailed the Greek Islands for 20 years and was an outstanding host. Super funny, quick-witted and knew his stuff. The tour was for 4hrs, included an incredible dinner onboard consisting of some of the best prawns, chicken, steak and sides we’ve eaten as well as drinks.
We toured up the side of Santorini, being shown where one of Brad Pitt’s Santorini houses adorned the cliff top (he has 2 on the island). We learnt the whole island arrangement is because this is the top of an enormous volcano – and it’s 23 years past its erruption due date. But – given it’s a submerged volcano, all it does is push the island up higher out of the water. As it’s been doing this for hundreds of years, there’s a distinctive layering of the sides of the cliff as what used to be submerged now sits above the waterline.
After an hour or so sitting on the bow of the boat, drinking beer and wine and chatting to the other travelers, we stopped and had a swim in the super salty but quite warm waters near a recently formed island. Back on board, we ate our delicious dinner and really got to know the other people on board. Some super nice people, all of whom turned out to be American – a couple from LA, another from Washington DC and a couple with his parents from New Orleans. By the end of the trip we were all besties and swapped contact details so we now have a few places in the US we’d love to go and stay, and more than happy to be hosts to any of them who are keen for a trip to Adelaide.
All in all, one of the best things we’ve done we decided. It was super well organised, good value and was a pretty unique experience that won’t be soon forgotten!
