Dateline: Saturday 29th June 2024 Reykjavik Harbour: "The Sun has got its Hat On"

Isn't that how the words of the song go?  Well, the Sun has had its hat all the time since it didn't go dark, just a continuous twilight overnight.  Not quite the land of the Midnight Sun but close.  Not that I knew much about midnight after 36 hours awake, I crashed out around 9.00pm and enjoyed 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep until 7.00am this morning.

Breakfast proved to be a bit of battlefield.  The hotel is hosting a Jehovah's Witness Convention and it seemed like the attendees all arrived for breakfast at 7.00am.  There must have been well over 100, if not 200 people queued out of the Restaurant into the hotel Lobby.  I beat a hasty retreat and returned around 8.00am by which time only guests joining the Silver Endeavour were in evidence.

It was a bit tricky finding somewhere to eat yesterday evening.  All the restaurants close to the hotel were full of Americans from a vast Holland America cruise ship – you know a ship that looks like a block of flats on steroids and full of 4000 or so guests.  After being turned away for the third time I tried a less fashionable eatery that had space, that gave me a warm welcome and provided a heart-warming bowl of traditional local lamb stew that brought back wonderful memories of the lamb stews my Mother used to make.  Sunday roasts back in my youth comprised a half leg of lamb – the knuckle end of course - hot on Sunday, cold on Monday and either minced or stewed on Tuesday.   Only yellow split peas were absent from my meal yesterday evening!  You can drool again over my photo of the stew!  I will not send you photos of all my meals – just the memorable ones or those from special events.

Today it has been blue sky all the way and I'm now embarked on the Silver Endeavour and all boarding and immigration procedures have been completed and we are awaiting departure around 7.00pm.

On the way from the hotel to the ship I managed to get a photo, from the coach window, of the Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre. It reminded me of a visit that I made to this striking building in July 2016. I have located the photos I took at that time and with the help of Wikipedia now include here some interesting facts about the construction of this building.

It was the first purpose-built concert hall in Reykjavík and opened on the 4th May 2011. The building features a distinctive coloured glass façade inspired by the basalt landscape of Iceland and was designed by the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects in co-operation with Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. 

 

The structure consists of a steel framework clad with geometric shaped glass panels of different colours. The panels also house 714  LED lights, 486 in the eastern part of the building and 228 in the western part. These lights were designed to display a video work designed by Olafur Eliasson. In 2021, for the building's 10-year anniversary, Eliasson created 12 new light works to exhibit on the glass, one for each month of the year. In 2014 other artists were granted access to the building's advanced lighting system, and it was used by the artists Atli Bollason and Owen Hindley to display an interactive art piece PONG, based on the classic arcade game Pong,

Located In the water next to the Harpa Hall, is a sculpture entitled “The Musician” (1970) by the Icelandic sculptor Ólöf Pálsdóttir. The statue is of a cellist playing, and is modelled on the Danish cellist Erling Blöndal Bengtsson,who played constantly for Ólöf as he sat for her.

I also recall that back in July 2016 the Harpa building was the venue for a photo exhibition entitled “Bowie - The Session”, featuring photographs by Gavin Evans. The exhibition ran from March 22 to August 31, 2016 and was held to honour the musician after his death in January 2016. I would have dearly liked to visit this exhibition but like all things in Iceland but time the entrance fee was way too expensive!