The plan this day was to trek along the north coast of Iceland, and spending the night near ????. There was some sight-seeing we wanted to do along the way, visiting Godafoss and Akureyri, Iceland's capital of the North.
Godafoss was the first stop, about an hour out of Husavik. It' a beautiful waterfall, but it's claim to fame is more historical than anything. In the year 1000, Thorgeir, then leader of the country, was forced to choose between Christianity and their pagan gods. In order to keep the country united, he chose Christinaity and, on his way home from that meeting, threw his paga idols in this waterfall, hence its name. There were nice walks along the waterfall and we chose to follow one of them, leading to a pedestrian bridge that allowed us to cross the river and enjoy the waterfall from the other side.
Back on the road we made our way to Akureyri, the second largest town in Iceland with a population around 20 thousand. We had two goals there: visit the church (Akureyrakirkja) and the botanical gardens. A two hour drive took us into town and we found the church, where we parked and went exploring.
The church was designed by the same architect that designed Hallsgrimkirkja in Reykjavik, and it shows: the same preference for unadorned concrete, one high tower in the middle and straight lines. This one was a little more art deco-ish than Hallsgrimkirkja, but interesting all the same. Unfortunately it was closed, so we did not get a chance to inspect the organ they had inside.
Since it was close, we wandered down the steps in front of the church and went to explore the old downtown area, which is basically a street with bookstores, restaurants, bakeries and souvenir shops. After exploring a few of the stores (and buying some souvenirs) we ended up having coffee and pastries at one of the bakeries. One interest tid-bit: they had doughnuts, which they referred to as USA. You could have a caramel-glazed or chocolate-glazes USA if you wanted.
Back in tourist mode we climbed up the stairs and headed past the church to the world's norhtnemost botanical garden. It was small, but pretty, with many different plants, shady walks and benches for one to enjoy what was a sunny afternoon. And enjoy we did, spending a very pleasant half hour there before getting back on the road.
Back in the car we decided it was getting late, we still had a long drive before us, so our next destination should be our hotel. We got out our trusty GPS, and tried first the name of the town, then hotel name, but the GPS said it had no idea what were talking about. We then tried entering the coordinates of the hotel as provided by our travel agency, but there was something wrong: it listed the latitude as being XX degrees and 69 minutes, somethiing that can't possibly be correct as there are only 60 minutes in one degree. Not that it mattered, as every variation I tried had our destination as the Atlantic Ocean.
We gave up on the GPS and decided to navigate the old way, by map. Followed it for two hours and eventually were in the vicinity of where we thought the hotel was, but could't find it. Eventually we gave up, stopped the car and, after a few attempts were able to reach someone in the hotel who told us in which route the hotel actually was. We reoriented ourselves and ten minutes later were arriving at our destination where they pointed us to our room, a grass-roof cabin a little bit down the road.
We both had lamb for dinner at the hotel; the other choices were fish (which we were tired off), horse steak (which we did not have because we don't eat pets), and beef heart (which is way much bigger than a chicken heart). No matter, the food was delicious and and afterwards we retired to our cabin for a hot shower and a much needed rest.
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