Downtown Reykjavik - Laugavegur and the Sun Voyager
6 July 2019
With the towering Hallgrimskirkja to our backs, we headed down the sloping street toward the center of the town. We cut down a side street to Laugavegur, Reykjavik’s main shop street. Things were slowly starting to open for the day as we peeked in windows and admired the murals painted along alley walls. At first glance you would assume it was snowing out, as balls of white were swirling through the air... but instead, it was just the pollen being released from the trees. So much pollen!
We posed with a giant troll on the street, a wood carving of Thor in a Saga-themed shop, found a Dutch shop that was like the toy and housewares section of Ikea, and visited a few places dedicated to Vikings and the Norse mythology. They are really living that up here, which I think is a great thing. Celebrate your heritage! One thing I found interesting was that so many of the shop workers had heavy Icelandic accents and were from Iceland for sure, but they were speaking to each other in English. There were a few others who had more North American sounding accents, and were likely Icelanders who lived abroad, but I was really surprised at how little Icelandic I was hearing.
We eventually made our way down past all the bars and pubs (including the “American Bar” with gaudy stars and stripes everywhere) to Ingólfur Square. I think there is an ice ring there in the winter, but that isn’t much help in July even though the temperature is still fairly cool. We decided to hit a pub later on, and went in search of more coffee. We settled at the Paris Café, because who doesn’t need a good French café in their life, even in Iceland? We got the Hjónabandssaela, the Icelandic “happy marriage cake”, with its oat crust and rhubarb filling. Rhubarb is a big thing here, you find it in just about anything, and later on we will keep an eye out for the local rhubarb liqueur!
As we sat looking out the café window doing some Icelandic people watching, we swear we saw the bowtie-clad guide who took Rick Stein around town on Long Weekends!
Along the Reykjavik waterfront, just a few blocks north of Laugavegur, sits a simple yet impressive sculpture called the “Sun Voyager”. It is a representation of Iceland’s Viking roots, honoring the people who set out on tough seas in small wooden ships to make their way across the world. I think people now are starting to realize just how far the Vikings have traveled in their day, again as mentioned at the Lief Erikson statue at Hallgrimskirkja, they even were the first Europeans in North America. The reputation of Vikings just being mindless pillagers and murderers is getting a well-deserved remake. They were amazing seafarers as this sculpture stands to testament, and the seas they conquered are notoriously dangerous. This was the part of the sea that sunk the Titanic after all. As someone taking up the rains of sailing myself, it is impossible to look upon these people and not find some sort of appreciation for their skill on the water. They sailed through seas and conditions I sure wouldn’t want to tackle, even on a modern boat!
