On a spur of the moment we decided to book a three-day trip to Iceland through Secret Escapes, staying at a viking-themed hotel in Hafnarfjörður just to the south of Reykjavik and including a few excursions thrown in too. The hotel was immediately next to a viking-themed restaurant too making it easy to identify. Around the hotel were various bits of stonework, statues, and replica shields all in keeping with the theme. The hotel had both viking and nordic themes in its decor and our bedroom was in the latter style; it was adequately-sized and had a comfortable bed. The water in Iceland is geothermically heated which did make showering and washing teeth interesting. You just need to block your nose a bit to dampen down the smell of sulfur.
On a couple of nights we dined at the restaurant next door. The first night’s meal was something specially made for the tourists – dried cod, cured shark, pickled herring, lamb testicles, lamb blood pudding, guillemot, foal, and minke whale, all washed down with Black Death schnapps – and it was… okay. Guillemot I would eat again. Minke whale I would not.
I didn’t have my proper camera on me when we went to the restaurant but we were quite amazed to see (considering we were in a bright parking lot next to the hotel and main road) the aurora bright in the sky above us. I managed to capture a shot on my phone which surprised even me.
