Godafoss & Leisurely Akureyri
We didn’t need to meet in the Stardust Theater until 9:15 AM, but we were up about 6 again. I was feeling better today. We had breakfast, but I don’t remember where. Not at the buffet, and not at the Main Dining Room, so it was probably O’Sheehan’s.
The theater was crowded when we got there, and we wound up sitting practically at the very top to wait for them to call our excursion. Akureyri was the name of the town, but we couldn’t remember what ‘Godafoss’ referred to. I hoped it didn’t require a lot of walking, because the longer I waited, the more my stomach started to feel ‘iffy’. But I didn’t have any problems with my sinuses or head. I was startled to hear that our excursion had 6 buses devoted to it.
There were no tenders to negotiate this day; we took a gangplank straight to the pier, found our bus, and got on. We grumbled a bit about having to put on seat belts in Iceland (It’s the law!), because the straps were never easy to find, and the buckles either didn’t want to click shut or didn’t want to come open. Or both.
The bus took off, and we were headed for Godafoss, whatever that was. The only hint we got was that it was 45 minutes away. Okay, then there couldn’t be a lot of walking involved, right?
The tour guide was full of information on the scenery, Icelandic history and lore. She kept us entertained during the drive. And then we pulled off the road and drove a couple hundred yards to a parking lot. We had caught glimpses of a beautiful waterfall of to the side of the road, and the bus dropped us off at the head of a trail that would take us to it. So there was walking involved, but I didn’t mind, because I love waterfalls and rivers. So we walked up to the waterfall and down again, as far as the ‘official’ path would take us. The waterfall itself was shaped rather like a horseshoe, like I guess Niagara Falls is. But there was this one tiny section, which I kept referring to a ‘spit’ of a waterfall. The main waterfall sections were roaring and majestic. The spit of a waterfall was cute, like a baby.
Anyway, we got back to the bus just barely after the 45 minutes we were allotted to stay there. Then the drive back to Akureyri, with the tour guide being entertaining.
We had one more stop to make, at the Akureyri Botanical Gardens, where we were allotted 30 minutes to explore. I should have been recovered by our hike at the falls, but I was still feeling tired, with my knees aching, so I opted to stay on the bus. Hubby got off and managed to get back before his 30 minutes were over.
Then it was back to the pier, where we did a little shopping at the gift shop. Hubby selected a decorative magnet for our refrigerator, and I selected a little statuette of a troll for my office. The prices were in Icelandic currency, but hubby paid by credit card, so we’ll have to see how much our credit card is dinged.
Back to the ship to find lunch. We went to the buffet, but didn’t bother with any desserts, because their desserts are almost tasteless. Then we went back to our cabin, where I took a nap, and dealt with multiple spasms in my calves. At one point, hubby even laid down and tried to nap.
We had a reservation for a specialty restaurant that evening, which meant we had to go find it. It was, pretty literally, a hole-in-the-wall place that we couldn’t find until we stood in the middle of the bar that the restaurant was supposed to be before, and looked back the way we came. The door for the restaurant was tucked away around the corner, and the only sign for it was facing the bar.
This was an Italian restaurant, and it was noisy inside. Lots of hard surfaces, with no space between tables. Hubby ordered pasta, red snapper and a white wine. I ordered tomatoes with mozzarella cheese and fettuccini alfredo. I don’t know wine, so I simply asked for a ‘sweet’ wine, the sweeter the better. We expected bread sticks, but got an entire loaf of bread, which we very nearly ate completely. The food was good, I liked my (white) wine selection, but don’t remember what it was called. Riesling Blue? Does that sound right? We left without dessert, because we didn’t have any room for it. Too much bread, I suppose.
We went back to our cabin and sat on the balcony, hoping to see some whales as the ship moved out of the fjord, but no such luck. We did see what we thought were 3 dolphins, sticking their noses up out of the water to watch the ship move past. We reached the end of the fjord about 9:30, and we were getting cold, so we went inside and went to bed. It was still light out about 10 when I turned the last light off.
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