The bus for our day’s excursion took us from the last stop at the Botanical Garden the short distance down to the port and let us all off very close to Sky Princess. Most people headed straight for the cruise ship, eager to eat or drink or pee or do all three in various orders, while a few took advantage of there still being a few hours until sail away to turn the other way and walk the short distance into town for photographing or shopping opportunities in Akureyri itself. We were in the latter group, and while it’s true that we knew there were one or two drinking establishments open that we wanted to visit – we like to drink locally when we travel; it’s good for us, and it’s good for the local economy – we’d also spotted some interesting pieces of public artwork along the waterfront from our bus that encouraged a closer look to start with.
The first sculpture we encountered was a piece called Farið by Pétur Bjarnason. The name means Gone or Flight, and if you’re anything like us then you possibly assumed from its shape that it had something to do with fish or whales, although I’ve seen some people associate it with a horned helmet. Quite what anyone thinks it looks like is neither here nor there, though, as it’s actually to commemorate commercial aviation in Akureyri in 1937. Aircraft had flown to the area a little prior to that, but the venture was short-lived, ceased operations, and it was 1937 that an airline associated with the town was formed.
If you’ve read may articles on this site before or you’ve been unlucky enough to meet us then you might know that we love architecture, and one form we’re particularly fond of is brutalism. Happening upon the Hof Cultural Centre in Akureyri our eyes lit up. It’s easy to look at this piece of modernism in a couple of the photos below and picture it being constructed in the late 1960s or early 1970s, but it’s actually a twenty-first building, with work first starting on it in just 2006. Three hundred tons of basalt form the exterior of the building. Gorgeous.
Another piece of sculpture next in the form of a memorial to a boat named Súlan EA 300 (catchy name). There have been several boats of this name in this part of the world but the first of those sank in 1963 with the loss of five lives.
On our walk around the fjord shoreline we caught sight of Akureyri Church. It was easy to see a similarity in design between it and Iceland’s famous Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík and the reason for that was simply that they’re both austere, Lutheran churches, both dating from the late 1930s, and both designed by Guðjón Samúelsson.
From one piece of design in Akureyri that reminded us of something we’d previously seen in Reykjavík to another, and the thing that had caught our eyes a couple of times already during the day when our tour bus had first left for the excursion, then returned. This was Sailing, unmistakably a sailing vessel, and clearly in the same style as the Sun Voyager in the capital. Yet again, the simple explanation was a shared creator, this time being Jón Gunnar Árnason. It made for a lovely and appropriate sight with Sky Princess in the distance.
Our cultural wander in Akureyri came to an end and we wandered back into town to find a bar in which to spend some money locally. It’s perfectly fine – desirable even – to sneer at those who travel but don’t spend when they get there. I strongly encourage it. On the walk along the fjord we spotted a traffic light with heart-shaped red lights. Cute.
We ended up at R5 to try some of the craft beers on offer. Absolutely lovely stuff. If you like cocktails then they do those too, and I’ve got some of the drinks menus shared in the pictures below in case you’re interested in knowing just how much money that would cost you were you to hop in a time machine and travel back to the summer of 2022 to join us for a drink.
And that brought our time ashore in Akureyri to a close with a short stroll all that was needed to take us back to the cruise ship.
In our cabin we had certificates waiting for us as our approach over the top of Iceland the night before had meant we’d technically crossed the Arctic Circle. We’d like to do that properly on a more northern cruise at some point but it was nice to tick something else off the list of travel achievements.
Some freshening up, some ordering of drinks to the room, and some watching the sail away of Sky Princess up the Eyjafjörður and towards the open sea occupied us for the early part of the evening aboard the ship. It may be one of Iceland’s longest fjords but it really can’t compete with those of Norway. Still enchantingly beautiful, though, and a great experience to glide past on a cruise ship.
For dinner this evening we chose to eat at Alfredo’s, the premium pizza place on a Princess Cruises ship which, at the time, was complimentary. That’s no longer the case, and that’s both a shame and a strange decision, even if the reasoning for it – money – makes sense for the business. The food there is good, but is it that much better than the free pizza on the top deck or free food elsewhere? Not in our opinion. And if that opinion is shared by enough people then it’s going to be interesting to see what they do with the large space given over to the restaurant area on these Royal-class ships if they never get full any longer.
In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll reach another new Icelandic town for us, Ísafjörður, and we’ll discover some absolutely brilliant museums and a fantastic brewery too.