For our first day we decided to start off with the free walking tour of Reykjavik. We've done several of the free walking tours and they are generally good, because the guides rely on tips. There is not much to see in Reykjavik compared to the major European cities, since most of it is relatively new. Supposedly it was founded in Viking times, but our guide showed us a drawing of it as it was in 1850, and there was a church, a store, a pier and about 30 houses, that's it. Even now the population is only about 200,000.
Although there wasn't much to see, the guide was good at telling stories and keeping us entertained. At one point he mentioned there is a penis museum in Reykjavik. That immediately became somewhere Yanmei wanted to go see. 🙂
It started to rain just as we finished the tour, so we headed back to the hotel. We tested a bit in the hotel and the rain stopped and it started to clear up, so I suggested we go on a whale watching tour.
The tour was successful we saw several minke whales and some dolphins. At one point a whale came up right next to the boat, although I didn't get a picture of that. It is pretty difficult to capture good pictures because they only surface for about a second and then go back under, so I have several photos of recently disturbed water, ha ha.
As we headed back, the clouds seemed to be clearing, so I thought it would make for a good sunset. I came back down to the shoreline at about 11:30pm to catch the 11:55pm sunset. Unfortunately there were too many clouds on the horizon, so it wasn't great. The ocean was remarkably still.
-David
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