The best museum in the world is the Ísafjörður Museum of Everyday Life.
That’s a bold statement there, Mark. Some might even call it an unsupported opinion.
That’s all very true. It is just my opinion but there’s something very important about that to consider: my opinions are incredible. Everyone should aspire to share my opinions.
In the previous post in this cruise travelogue series covering our 2022 Sky Princess cruise to Norway and Iceland we’d reached the second Icelandic port on the itinerary and, thanks to some poor zooming in on maps and research to see what was around, had decided that all we could really do was take a walk around Ísafjörður to brave the cold and enjoy the views. Oh, but we should have zoomed in on those maps a bit more. It turns out that Ísafjörður has quite a few museums. Now, admittedly, the time of the year you visit and time of day you visit plays heavily into whether any of them are open, but if you like museums then Ísafjörður will not actually disappoint you, and in one particular case, if you trust my opinion – like you should – then it will positively thrill you.
Our intention at the conclusion of wandering around Ísafjörður was to simply head back towards where the tender boats would take us to the ship with a small diversion towards some street art we’d spotted earlier in the day. We more-or-less picked a random route to where we needed to be and that’s when we spotted a small place beside the road with a sign indicating it was a museum and open.
“I thought you said there wasn’t anything to do here,” my wife might have mentioned. I might have made a non-committal noise then said “Well, since we’re here, let’s pop in.”
We found ourselves in the Museum of Everyday Life. Beside the door there was art equipment set up and a link to an account of a local artist’s workflow. On a wall there was a sheepskin, some mushrooms, a recipe, rhubarb, and baking mix, along with some notes. It was all a bit weird and eclectic, but it wasn’t until we reached the books nailed to the wall, each with someone’s photo stuck inside plus a some description of the memory of that particular day by the photo’s owner that it started to come together. Moments in the lives of Icelanders to share. And then there was the shelving with different shoes on them and telephones you could pick up and listen to the owners of those talking about what those shoes meant to them (taking a foreign holiday, or working in the fields, or just being able to dress up one time, etc.)
In the second of just three rooms in this museum darkness was the overriding factor. This was the room in which to engage your other senses. Jars could be unscrewed and their contents sniffed for more memories of life; crayons, rusty screws, cold coffee, seaweed, etc. In holes you could stick your hands in and feel socks or wool or other objects. Just, basically, things that evoked feelings of being at school or being at work or being at home; something we all have and can share, but which are also unique to us.
The final room showed three short films on loop. Photos or films were accompanied by people connected to them talking about seeing the Northern Lights, or being in the kitchen with their mother, or winter time and the fjord water freezing over. Captivating. You could hear the emotions of the people recounting the simplest of things and live it with them.
So that’s it. Three small rooms. No precious works of art, but precious memories shared. It was enchanting. The Ísafjörður Museum of Everyday Life was enthralling. It’s our most favourite museum we’ve ever been to, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
After we left, thoroughly pleased with our lucky discovery, we decided to pay a bit more attention to the map, discovering several other museums in this part of the town, and another was very close by so a couple of minutes later we stepped into the Nonsense Museum. I’m very happy that we did so too as within nine months of our visit this museum would close permanently, and that’s a shame as we enjoyed this building a lot.
As its name might suggest, the museum housed nonsense. In effect, it housed collections of collections. As we walked around the two floors of exhibits there was everything on show from alcohol miniatures to airline memorabilia to perfume sample bottles to packs of sugar cubes to police headgear. You can see the sorts of things in the photos below. Like the Museum of Everyday Life it showed off something of human nature when thinking about the sorts of people who would collect these sorts of things. We, ourselves, pick up shot glasses and bookmarks when we travel so there was a connection to us in this. Again, a shame that the museum has now closed.
We decided that we would head towards the little bit of street art we’d seen at this point. The map also indicated another museum was in the vicinity but also a brewery.
In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll finish our time in Ísafjörður with a visit to either a final museum or a brewery. Knowing what you do about us, assuming you know anything at all, will you be able to guess which one ends up absorbing a fair chunk of our time and money before we tender back to Sky Princess? Find out in Ísafjörður Street Art, Brewery, And Sail Away Aboard Sky Princess.