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Well its been quite a grey day here in Reykjavik with rain on and off throughout the day. The day started with Breakfast up in the sky bar. It was all the normal suspects, scrambled eggs and pork links, porridge, fresh fruit and cold meats etc. The only real point of difference was the bread. Think a soreen fruit loaf the size of a slice of allinson wholemeal but with seeds in the dough mix as well. Trev was not so keen but I was loving it (this normally means that it is full of calories).

So the plan this morning was to explore the city on foot for the am hours then head over to the hire car centre in the early afternoon. Our first stop was just to the left of our hotel a a short climb up Amerholl Hill and see the monument that celebrates the first settler on Iceland called

Ingoifur Arnarson. I have to say at this point that although there are a lot of bronzes in and around the capital city they are actually very poorly signposted or labelled to help the poor tourist work out why they are there and who are these people....thank you to the guide books for helping us out!

Next it was up into the the main shopping streets passing more of the quirky design led boutique stores. From wool to reindeer hides, handblown glass to leftfield pottery these shops are eclectic and youthful but they all do feel like they are trying just that little bit to hard. I am a massive supporter of design and independent retailers but this does feel a little bit like force feeding the tourist......it could just be me.

Slowly climbing up a gentle slope we headed up to the most visible landmark of the city the Hallgrimskirkja Church, started in 1945 and finished in 1986 (38 years). This a brutalist piece of architecture made from poured concrete slabs. It resembles a parabolic curve with 1930's deco detail. The most impressive part of the church is its organ, complete with over 5000 pipes it really is something to see, such a shame we did not get to hear it in action.

It was after visiting this church that our map reading skills left us pretty much for the rest of the day and added on a further three miles of walking as we sought out our next destinations. Still all the detours made for us taking in more of the city and a better understanding of how diverse and different each area can be. We headed for the central pond (imaginative name isn't it?!) Its a cross between a nature reserve, a reservoir and a centre piece to a public park. At the far end of The Pond stands City Halllike a modernist castle raising out of its moat. Today was the day that the Reykjavik council were launching Gay Pride hence all the rainbow flags on the flagpoles (see the photo above). Iceland has the world first openly gay president and you do get the feeling that they like to be proud of that here.

By now we have to admit to feeling a bit of a chill so we headed of back to the old harbour district and coffee and cake! We found The laundromat, one of those effortlessly trendy coffee shops, great for people watching and a mean line in carrot cake. Refreshed and revived we headed off to collect hire car via getting lost at least three times before discovering that the lovely icelanders spell things in many different formats so following rad names that all look the same was not necessarily a good game plan.

We collected our hire car (a Chevrolet with only 30km on the clock in apple ipod white) complete with ash damage insurance cover and headed out to The Perlan. The perlan is peculiar, its a revolving restaurant inside a glass dome, a museum and a christmas shop. The weird thing about it though is that this glass domed restaurant and viewing platform is positioned on the top of four geothermal hot water storage tanks. The viewing platform gives you 360 degree views out across the whole of the city and the surrounding land. What hits you is just how flat the city really is.

It started to rain so we headed into the restaurant for Icelandic Meat soup to warm ourselves up again.

Now I have to say that to be honest I am glad that we are leaving Reykjavik for the next three days. There is nothing wrong with the city at all but I honestly cant think of anything remarkable about it either. As we got lost today and disappeared into areas that I am sure most people would never ever see it just made us think that the city is thriving off tourism alone and this was proved even more by our next stop ..... a shopping mall.

In Reykjavik central everyone seems to speak magnificent english but at the mall less so. Now we did not want to go shopping but we needed to get a few things that we had forgotten and could not live the next six weeks without. It was the quickest you have ever seen me move in and out of a shopping mall EVER!

It was now time to make our way back to the hotel and conform what would become our itinerary for the next three days now that we had the car. Normally when we travel we are planned and know exactly what we are going to do and when but not this time. With everything that has been going on we have not had the chance or the motivation so we spent a good hour searching out what was doable and decide what we really wanted to see whilst we are here. With our decisions made the next three days are looking fantastic.

Time for dinner now so we headed of to the harbour area again and found a cafe/bar/ restaurant that looked popular. I ordered the fish stew expecting a soupy type dish but what I got was like a fish mash potato in a light cream sauce with seed bread. Now when it arrived I have to admit that my heart sank but it was fantastic and so so so tasty. Such a great choice for dinner especially as it was followed by a warm apple pie! YUM.

We walked back to the hotel via the fishing port and stumbled across maps from the 1900's to the present day showing all the shipwrecks of large vessels in icelandic waters, sad but fascinating at the same time.

Its now 22:21 here and it looks like mid afternoon when you glance out of the window. It would be really easy to loose any bearing of time here as it just does not get dark but nighttime it is.

Early start tomorrow as we have a four hour drive in front of us but its gong to be incredible.

ooooo