FFF #10 – Volcano House

Soooo… The FFF had to take a couple of weekends off because I was limping along with an injured heel, and two-hour walking-fests weren’t really high up on the want-to-do list.

My heel is slowly getting better, although I did a stupid thing at gym again, and probably made it slightly worse (again), but that’s just the nature of plantar faciitis.  It’ll take a while…

But I was getting antsy again, so I decided to finally visit a low-walking venue that I’d both seen on the TripAdvisor to-do list for Reykjavik, and driven past a few times, sparking my curiosity.

It’s called Volcano House (#20 on the TripAdvisor list), and is basically a tourist trap/cafe/restaurant/rock display/tiny cinema.  I really doubt they get a lot of Icelanders through their doors, so I figured I’d fall on the figurative sword and see what the touristy fuss was about.

The short story is that the meat soup was filling, but on the salty side, the rocks were mostly pretty, and the videos made me wonder why the heck anybody would live in Iceland.  Ever.  And that the people that do are therefore nuts and/or ridiculously stubborn.  Which, incidentally, isn’t very far from the truth. (41 images total)

The Volcano House lives on the ground floor in that house on the left. Unseen, left-ishly behind me, is the Reykjavik Main Library, previously visited here.

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FFF #9 – Geysir Bistro, The Settlement Exhibition, and Stofan Cafe

[Written 21-22 March 2014]

Again, the timing of this weekend’s FFF outing was constrained by a very busy weekend schedule, so yet again I had to find something to do around lunchtime.

After perusing the TripAdvisor listing for stuff to do in Reykjavik (Gullfoss is #1?!?!  That’s like an hour and a half away!), I decided to check out the Settlement Exhibition (click here for the official multimedia site).  

It didn’t hurt that the admission was included in the Culture Card I got in January.

First though, I had to get food, and had my sights set on almost-next-door Fiskmarkaðurinn (The Fish Market).  As it turned out, that restaurant is closed for lunchtime on the weekends, so I ended up at Geysir Bistro a few houses away.  After the exhibition, I still had a few minutes to spare and a grumbling stomach, so I walked a few steps to the Stofan Cafe for a pick-me-up, before heading home.

The Settlement Exhibition was cool, surprisingly cool.  I’ll have to take the kids (at least Anna) there one day soon. (52 images total)

I was early enough that parking was a breeze! That gray stone building is the parliament building, and behind it you can see the Reykjavik cathedral.

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FFF #8 – Gerðarsafn (Myndir ársins 2013), Cafe Dix, and Archery

[Written 13 March 2014]

Yet again, our busy weekend schedule meant that my only opening for a FFF outing was from 11 am on a Sunday morning, to about 2 pm.

I was feeling ‘sporty’ so I was initially just going to go shoot arrows at paper targets, but discovered just in time that the Archery Range opens at noon.

To pad out the outing, I therefore decided to visit Gerðarsafn (Museum of Gerður) first, where they were showing the Icelandic Photojournalism Association’s Pictures of the Year.  (Ironically, I decided not to bring my ‘big’ camera, all the following images are from my phone.)

The photo show was pretty much as expected, except that I learned that almost all Icelandic Photojournalists are male.  And it showed. (11 images total)

Back at Gerðarsafn. (See also FFF #4.)

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