Category Archives: Travel

From the Ministry of Odd Coincidences: I’ve been on four organised photography tours, and I’ve now been in the right place to witness marathons or “fun runs” on three of them. The latest was the annual Reykjavik Marathon. I wonder why this keeps occurring?

From the Health and Safety Executive: If you sit down at lunch and all the welds holding the seat to the chair legs suddenly fail, it isn’t necessarily because your wife is right and you’re overweight. It could simply be down to the fact that the chair has been out in one too many Icelandic storms and the restaurant should apologise to you instead of the other way around. The lesson: understand how to inspect a cracked weld for rust (and maybe lose a few pounds too! :)).

From the Department of Pointless Activities: If a restaurant has limited English reading matter, a two year old copy of Stuff really is probably worse than nothing. It’s quite scary how many of the new gadgets in that magazine have been, gone and already been replaced.

From the Icelandic Department of Culture (OK, they really exist, but why spoil a good format?): Reykjavik “Culture Night” is a fascinating thing to experience. Having seen the Marathon off this morning downtown Reykjavik was a bit dead, and I got a taxi over to the big shopping mall, and had lunch there. When I got back, Reykjavik was completely transformed, with almost the whole centre pedestrianised and every street corner sporting a burger/beer stand and live music. It looks like almost the whole Icelandic population has turned out, and I’m amazed that the country has that many musicians and PA systems.  It’s not even just music – one square was hosting a pole dancing competition! The only minor problem is that the area opposite my hotel has been given over to an Iron Maiden tribute band. They’re not without talent, but very loud…

I’m off now to sample some more of culture night. Hopefully I’ll be able to update you later with some pics of the fireworks.

… The remainder of Culture Night was a mixed bag. The big Jazz concert to start the Jazz festival was, to be as charitable as possible, “simply weird shit” (the uncharitable wouldn’t bother with “weird” :)).  However, once I gave up on that and went in search of a drink I found an amazing Christian blues band playing in the back of a tiny coffee house. The fireworks weren’t quite where everyone expected them, and by the time I’d moved and got the camera settings right I didn’t get many good shots. On the other hand, the lighting up of the Harpa concert building worked wonderfully, and I got a couple of decent shots, one of which is the image for today.

The guides arrive early Sunday, and then the landscape photography begins. Watch this space.

Well my Iceland trip has finally come round – I just hope it rewards the wait. As many of you will know I originally tried to do a trip to Iceland last year, but was stymied by a combination of volcanoes and economic uncertainty, which meant that there were insufficient other takers. This year things looked better, but it still took a couple of months of emails with the tour leaders before things were settled.

The waiting continued at the airport. The check-in and gate check processes were both interminable, with long queues which between them chewed up over an hour. Now it’s ten minutes past departure time, and I’ve just watched the baggage handlers unload a plane load of frozen fish from our hold, and only just start to load our baggage, one item at a time. I thought the aviation world discovered palletised baggage and freight about 40 years ago? I can see this flight running at least an hour late, and to think I rushed lunch because of the check-in delays…

I’m sitting in a plane with a seat pitch which makes Michael O’Leary’s plans to offer standing accommodation on Ryanair look half reasonable, and I’ve just scratched the back of my iPad quite badly on a very ill-designed “seat pocket” with near zero capacity and an exposed screw head just inside. Iceland Express is definitely at the EasyJet end of the scale.

At least I’m getting better at beating unreasonable baggage constraints, even if I did have to walk through check-in like John Wayne due to the lens down each trouser leg! Also I’ve discovered that if you can lift your camera bag with one finger they assume it’s light and don’t bother to check the weight. At last the weightlifting comes in useful.

… The flight was uneventful if a bit boring. There was no in-flight entertainment, and the noise levels were a bit too high to watch any video on my iPad. Oh well, thank goodness for Kindle and Angry Birds 🙂

The road from Keflavik to Reykjavik is flat and straight, with nothing much going on either side, but there are tantalising glimpses of more promising terrain in the distance. What is interesting is that you can see sunlight, cloud, dry weather and rain patches in the same vista. I see what they mean about waiting 5 minutes if you don’t like the weather here.

… Reykjavik looks a lot as I expected, clean and Scandinavian, although there’s almost a North East USA feel to some of the road and larger building layouts. After I settled in at the hotel I wandered down to the town centre, and got a couple of shots including this rather nice one of the Hallgrimskirkja and the statue of Lief Eriksson in front of it.

The daily cycle is going to challenge an early bird like myself. Sunset is after 9, and sunrise about 5. I was just starting to stir this morning and was rudely awoken by a party coming down the street, presumably having just been chucked out of a night club!

Oh well, I didn’t come here to rest. I have a free day in Reykjavik today, and the tour proper starts tomorrow. I’m going to try and update at least once a day – connectivity doesn’t seem to be a big challenge like it was in Cuba – so please check back soon.