Thursday, September 19, 2019, Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic, with a population of 360,390 and an area of 40,000 square miles, making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Reykjavík, with Reykjavík and the surrounding areas in the southwest of the country being home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geolog-ically active. The interior consists of a plateau characterized by sand and lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude almost entirely outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence keep summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a tundra climate.

According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Ice-land began in 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls (i.e., slaves or serfs) of Gaelic origin.

The geographic superlatives that describe Iceland seem endless. The Kentucky-sized island is Europe's westermost.

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland

Iceland flag.

This building is thought to be of a convent across the harbor from our docked cruise ship.

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in south-western Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a population of around 128,793 (and 228,231 in the Capital Region), it is the center of Iceland's cultural, economic, and governmental activity, and is a popular tourist destination.

We rode through the city center and old harbor area en route to two of the city’s most admired buildings: The all-glass Harpa concert hall, a wonder of modern architecture............,

......... and Höfði House, site of the meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that marked the beginning of the end of the cold war.

Until the 19th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was founded in 1785 as an official trading town and grew steadily over the following decades as it transformed into a regional and later national center of commerce, population, and governmental activities. It is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world.

Steam from hot springs in the region is said to have inspired Reykjavík's name, which loosely translates to Smoke Cove (the city is sometimes referred to as Bay of Smoke or Smoky Bay in English language travel guides). In the modern language, as in English, the word for 'smoke' and the word for fog or steamy vapor are not commonly confused, but this is believed to have been the case in the old language. The original name was Reykjarvík (with an additional "r" representing the usual genitive ending of strong nouns) but this had vanished around 1800.

The Reykjavík area was farmland until the 18th century. In 1752, King Frederik V of Denmark donated the estate of Reykjavík to the Innréttingar Corporation; the name comes from the Danish-language word indretninger, meaning institution. The leader of this movement was Skúli Magnússon. In the 1750s, several houses were built to house the wool industry, which was Reykjavík's most important employer for a few decades and the original reason for its existence. Other industries were undertaken by the Innréttingar, such as fisheries, sulfur mining, agriculture, and shipbuilding.

The Danish Crown abolished monopoly trading in 1786 and granted six communities around the country an exclusive trading charter. Reykjavík was one of them and the only one to hold on to the charter permanently. 1786 is thus regarded as the date of the city's founding. Trading rights were limited to subjects of the Danish Crown, and Danish traders continued to dominate trade in Iceland. Over the following decades, their business in Iceland expanded. After 1880, free trade was expanded to all nationalities, and the influence of Icelandic merchants started to grow.

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjavik, Iceland

Panoramic Reykjavík

We got acquainted with Iceland’s picturesque capital on this enlightening excursion. We began with a drive up Öskjuhlío Hill to the Perlan vantage point, also known as “The Pearl.” This glass-domed building was constructed upon old hot-water storage tanks, and today offers sweeping city views.

Perlan (The Pearl) is a prominent landmark in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík. It is situated on the top of Öskjuhlíð hill. What was originally a cluster of hot water tanks was in 1991 converted to a building open to the public. It hosts an exhibition, a planetarium, an observation deck, and a restaurant.

In 1939, a single hot water tank was constructed on Öskjuhlíð hill in Reykjavík, where Perlan stands today. It is 61 meters above sea level, which gives enough pressure to push water up to the 10^th floor of a building, 38 meters above sea level. That suf-ficed to supply water anywhere in Reykjavík – even to the hill where Hallgrímskirkja church stands today. In the next two decades, five more tanks rose beside the first one. They were torn down and reconstructed in the late eighties.

In 1991, those six hot water tanks became the base of Perlan, a building open to the public. This project was largely at the behest of Davíð Odds-son, during his time as mayor of Reykjavík. Shaped and named after a pearl, it now characterizes Iceland’s capital – in the minds of citizens and travelers alike. Each tank can keep up to four million liters of hot water, with the volume of 4000 m³.