Today was the final part of our journey west – to the capital Reykjavik – for me to join the Tecla and for Anne to stay over for the night and then turn round and head back. The drive was an interesting one as Google Maps seemed to take us what was probably the most direct way, but not necessarily the easiest! A beautiful final drive through the Icelandic landscape though before driving down into a much more uniform and perhaps, by comparison, relatively bland urban landscape. We headed straight for Anne’s guesthouse to find somewhere to park and from there walked around to find our bearings. We started by finding the Tecla (so we knew where to head to later) and then wandered around – first to the Rainbow Street and on to the Hallgrímskirkja. This is a Protestant Lutheran parish church in Reykjavík, but is probably one of the better-known symbols of the capital. It is 74.5 metres tall making it the second tallest building in Iceland. It is very distinctive with a curved spire and side wings coming off the spire and was finished in 1986. It is named after the Icelandic poet and cleric Hallgrímur Pétursson, who was the author of the Passion Hymns.
From there we found a nice café for a break and then walked on to the National Museum of Iceland. This was actually a great introduction to Icelandic history and we both left feeling marginally more knowledgeable about the historical roots of the country and the origins of its people. According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in 874 AD, when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson was the island’s first permanent settler. He was quickly joined by more people (or it could have been quite lonely!), mainly from Norway but from other Scandinavian countries as well and initially government was by the Althing, based at Þingvellir and one of the world’s oldest functioning legislative assemblies. However, arguments amongst chieftains and various periods of civil unrest meant that Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. Then in 1397, Iceland followed Norway’s integration into the Kalmar Union along with the kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden. This meant that they came under Danish rule when the Union dissolved in 1523. The Danish kingdom introduced Lutheranism by force in 1550, and the Treaty of Kiel formally ceded Iceland to Denmark in 1814. There remained though a strong desire to be independent and it took until 1944 when Denmark was in the midst of the war for Iceland to vote overwhelmingly to become a republic. This ended the remaining formal ties to Denmark.
After a cup of tea back at the guesthouse, we then wandered down and joined the new Tecla crew for dinner. We now each have a journey to do back east – Anne by car and me sailing ….
