Today we have another long tour booked with Bus Travel Iceland – heading to the northern peninsula of Snaefellsnes, reputed to be “Iceland in miniature,” where you can see everything from volcanoes, black beaches, glaciers and waterfalls. We are to be at the 312 pier bus pick up spot 30 minutes early (as per their usual instructions) for an 8:00 am pick-up.  Early and long day for us – but it sounds like it should be great.  Learning from our lunch experience yesterday, we hit Mosaics just after Alfred opens up to grab some little ham and cheese croissant sandwiches to take with us for our lunch. Including our protein bars, raisins and nuts we brought from home just for this event, we’ll be fine for snacks and lunch on this 12-hour tour.

Leaving the ship, the shuttles aren’t running this early, so we just walk over to the bus stop (it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes) and enter the craziness of where-is-my-tour-bus central.  This place is a total CF.  Because we had such a late tour yesterday, we didn’t have too many people to deal with – but today?  Ay yi yi!  Celebrity Eclipse is here, along with HAL Niew Statendam, which makes the bus pick up area a complete and total mess.  There are people milling about everywhere looking for their bus/van/pick up. 

We know we are early but still explore all the vans parked around to see if by chance our tour is here.  Nope.  We’re waiting.  Madeline, our fellow passenger who was with us yesterday, is here as well – going to the same area just with a different tour company.  She wanders about but finds her van and is off on her adventure while we still wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Seriously – buses come, buses go, no Snaefellsnes small group tour comes for us.  It is Cluster meets F*ck here!  Guides walking around calling people’s names.  People walking around looking for buses, one woman going absolutely ballistic because she can’t find her tour.  It is craziness personified.

One guide has been walking around calling for Robert somebody or other for about 20 minutes.  Finally, I said to him, we can be Robert – where are you going?  He just laughed and said, “I’ve got space for 2, so maybe!”  Turns out, though, that Robert has been standing behind us the entire freaking time, running his mouth to some other cruise passenger, comparing costs and what they paid for the cruise!  Really? You just held up an entire van full of people because you were too busy running your mouth?  Honestly.  The guide though is adorable, once he finds Robert, he turns to us and says “you were this close,” putting his thumb and pointer finger together.  Cute.  But it still doesn’t get us our tour.  Finally, after standing out in the humid cold for over an hour, we break down and spend the money to call the tour company. After finally getting someone on the line, they tell us their tour guide was delayed.  Ok.  Great.  Not he’ll be there in 5 or 10 or 30 minutes, no, just he’s delayed.  Nope.  Plan B.  We tell him we want to cancel the tour – and luckily, they oblige and say they will give us a full refund.  Yeah, they better.  Compared with yesterday’s great experience, this has been a total fail.  Ah well – Reykjavik city tour it is.

First though, we go back to the ship to warm up with coffee, and to hit the bathroom.  Then it is back out to the Port shuttle, managing to grab 1 seat for the quick ride into the city.   Arriving at the Harpa center, we have decided to go to the Old Harbor area today and the old town tomorrow – since we now have all the time in the world and the areas are in the opposite direction of each other.  The Old Harbor area turns out to be slightly less than picturesque – but does have a storied history as the natural harbor that drew the original Viking explorer, Ingolfur Arnarson, to settle in the area.  In more modern times, the industry here revolved around the fisheries, and was important enough to be the main reason Reykjavik was named the capital city.  

With all that history in mind, we head to the Saga Museum, which tells the history of Iceland, and is advertised as a “walk with the Vikings.”  Sounds fun – except that oh my – is it expensive!  Yes, we know everything here is expensive, but geez, the entrance fee is $27.50 each.  And to be honest?  While it was an interesting museum, full of very lifelike Viking mannequins and interesting stories about the explorers, etc., it was totally not worth the money. 

That being said we were there, we had paid, we took our lumps and made the best of it.  There were interesting parts – like how one of the first Norsemen to settle in Iceland took 3 Ravens with him on the voyage.  The birds were to help him navigate to land.  1 Raven flew off and never returned, another one just came back, but the third flew toward the land and helped him find his way.  He later got the nick name of Hrafna-Floki – Hrafna meaning Raven, Floki being his first name. 

We got the whole history of Ingolfur Arnarson, the aforementioned settler of Reykjavik, the story of a blacksmith and how iron deposits were used and smelted; the Celtic princess who was brought to the island as a slave and prospective mistress (as an explanation of how most of the women on the island have Celtic blood); Leif the Lucky, the son of Eric the Red, who discovered Greenland; the woman who took on the natives in 1000 AD by baring her breasts, thus scaring them into thinking they were being cursed; and of course the history of the Althingi, which we got yesterday – the first form of Parliamentary government ever created.  There was a section on the Black Death – the plague – and the irony that the sailor, Einar Herjolsson, who brought the plague that killed over 1/3 of the island population, managed to survive without being infected. 

A little less than an hour and we were done with our history lesson, heading back out into the volcanic fumed late morning to explore this side of the city.  First though: lunch!  We are only a quick walk away from Baejarins Beztu Pylsur, one of the Pylsur stands that dot the city.  Its crazy busy!  But these guys (there are only 2) are like machines.  So fast and efficient. They work through the line in no time – God only knows how many pylsurs they sell an hour, much less in a day.  Wild.  We actually scored a seat on the benches with a small table – and the ubiquitous pylsur stand – along with a little birdie friend who was sadly dissapointed as we finished our entire Pylsur with not a crumb to spare.  Perfect for our lunch.  These pylsurs are different from the Akureyri version.  They have dried fried onions on the bottom and a different type of sauce.  Good – but the Akureyri version was better, IOHO. 

Food handled, we’re off to find Vinbudin, the state liquor store, for a bottle of Lava beer, the smoked stout we found out about in one of Dr. Jannie’s lectures.  We looked in Islafjordur, but they didn’t have any, suggesting we look when we arrive in Reykjavik.  And success!  They have it – we splurge on 2 bottles ($8 each – and they are smaller bottles than in the US – only 33ml, or 11.2 oz – oh well, gotta try different stuff when you can!).  Now it is time to finish our touring with Austurvollur, the main square of town, surrounded by the Althingishus (the Parliament House), one of the oldest stone buildings in Iceland.  There is a statue of Ingibjorg Bjarnason, the first woman in the Parliament, another cool monument to Civil Disobedience called The Black Cone – a black cone creating a fissure in a huge stone and our favorite, the Unknown Bureaucrat, a great representation of the nameless, faceless men and women who parade around government buildings and offices, a dime a dozen basically.  Great commentary!

A couple of churches round out our little city walk – the Domkirkjan I Reykjavik, the neoclassical Cathedral built in the18thC and the Lutheran Free Church next the National Gallery on the banks of the Tjornin lake.  Plus traditional Icelandic architecture and some great murals, and we are back on the port shuttle, where we are finally able to see and get some great photos of the Sun Voyager, the massive stainless steel sculpture of a Viking ship created in 1990.  Great surprise expedition day!

Back on board, we just sort of hang out, find a revised events calendar – White Night in Prince Christian sound – and generally just relax until dinner, drinks and Balcony sitting for the rest of the evening.