After spending the night near Husavik, we drove to the town of Akureyri. Akureyri is the 2nd largest town in Iceland with a whopping population of 17,754! It was also the first time we had seen a traffic light since Reykjavik. Akureyri was actually having a town festival that weekend so we lucked out with many things to see and do. On the way to Akureyri we stopped by another waterfall- Godafoss! This one is beautiful and one you often see in ads for Iceland.
Akureyri itself was nice, but not a whole lot to do in town. We were lucky it was a festival that weekend because there were local concerts and they have botanical gardens, which were beautifully lit up with soft live music playing (and for some reason people dressed as zombies...). Oh, and we also found Santa's house a little out of town. However I'm pretty sure Santa lives in Canada, so this must be his summer home.
The green building in the last photo was our hostel- Akureyri Backpackers! It was a more "hostelly" type hostel, but it was nice and had a great bar that was the happening place in town!
Since we got into Akureyri at 10am, we had a whole day ahead of us and we ended up deciding to go whale watching (Husavik is more known for whale watching, but Akureyri is a good spot too). It was a beautiful day, though quite cold when the boat was moving! At first we were worried that we wouldn't find any whales, but finally another boat out in the fjord found some and radioed in the 2 other whale watching boats out that day to come on over! There were 3 humpbacks that gave us quite a show for the rest of our whale watching tour. I had seen whales when I was in Mexico, but I had never been so close to one before- they came RIGHT up to our boat!
It was an amazing sight and I am glad we splurged on this excursion!
Hahahaha I love it "for some reason they were dressed like Zombies". Amazing.
ReplyDeleteI went on a whale watching tour years ago in Boston... let's just say, mine didn't end that well. I'm glad you saw whales!
Ya it was so pretty at dusk, with all the lights strung and people playing guitars or classic music in area...and then....zombies. One of them was touching me. it actually was kind of disturbing so we left the park. Iceland is weird!!!
Deletewe were reaaaaallly worried that we wouldnt see any whales, but luck was on our side!
Wow, those whales were right up by the boat!
ReplyDeleteYes, we would go closish to them, but then twice the whales just swam up to the boats (we didnt intentionally go that close). They didnt seem to mind the boats at all and I think it was just lucky!
DeleteAmazing!!!!
ReplyDelete