Monday - day 11 - Ísafjörður, Iceland

On Monday, we visited Ísafjörður (EE-sah-fyur-thur).

We walked down to the area where the Westfjords Heritage Museum was located, but we decided to opt out of visiting this museum today.

We decided to walk back toward the town and along the way saw several boats in the marina.

Looking across the harbor area to the town

More of the boats in the marina

Ísafjörður church

Fire station at end of side street

Coffee house and bakery around the corner and post office across the street.

Entrepreneurial coffee shop signs near the Rainbow Path

Rainbow Path

Same entrepreneurial coffee shop -- this was the sign at the entrance (that wasn't indicated in any other way that we noticed!).

We had seen this flower location earlier and went back to get our pictures taken. We offered to take the pictures of another couple, and they reciprocated. We then chatted with them for a while -- they were on the MSC ship that had been with us at Akureyri the day before and was here too. They live near Dover, England and have been on quite a few cruises. We had a good chat with them.

Though we had walked past these earlier, this time we noticed how pretty these flowers were.

Google Lens tells me that they are Livingstone daisies.

We had gone into the Nettó supermarket earlier -- looking for medications as the pharmacy was closed on Monday (Commerce Day). No medications found, but we found reasonably priced (for Iceland) teeshirts that we purchased.

We had thought that the photo of the Ísafjörður church from a distance would be sufficient, but the couple we met at the flower photo ring encouraged us to visit inside the church.

Some of the pretty houses with the towering sides of the fjord above them

Front of Ísafjarðarkirkja (Ísafjörður church) -- with its organ and pipes and interesting art piece, 

From Google: 

The main altar centerpiece of the modern Ísafjarðarkirkja (Ísafjörður Church) in Iceland features a stunning, minimalist installation titled “Birds of Heaven,” consisting of exactly 749 unique clay doves. 

Key Details of the Altar Piece 

The Design: Rather than a traditional painted altarpiece, the installation displays hundreds of distinct clay birds suspended on the wall, arranged to look like they are soaring upward in flight together. 

Community Project: Every single clay bird was handmade by local residents of the Westfjords town during a collective community art program. It serves as a powerful symbol of unity and local spirit. 

The Setting: The altar is housed inside a striking modernist church completed in 1995 (replacing an older church destroyed by fire in 1987). The sharp, sweeping architecture of the building mimics ocean waves and ship sails.

There were pictures relating the creation of "Birds of Heaven" (Fuglar himinsins) with pictures of the townspeople involved in the building: 

Bertel Thorvaldsen's "Christus" sculpture - the quote at the bottom is "Come to Me" in Icelandic

Looking down a side street to the large mountain with ice fields on it across from the mouth of the fjord

We have seen a few recreational trailers while visiting Iceland -- we are surprised by them being only single axle and by the very long rear overhang/tail wag. You'd have to be very careful when pulling away from a fueling island!

Again we had hot chocolate and water available to us as we headed back to the tenders...

Our tender with the MSC cruise ship at the pier beyond

We need to show our key cards as we go to board the tender.

Getting ready to board the tender...

... finding an available seat on the tender

After getting off the tender, going through identity check and bag check onboard the ship

From our balcony, overview pictures of Ísafjörður

Another picture of Ísafjörður from our balcony

We headed up to deck 9 to get hot dogs at Dive In near the Lido pool.

As we sailed out of the fjord, we got a good view of the fish farming areas in the fjord.

Each of these towns in the north part of Iceland have their own character along with similarities. They are beautiful, though I think they have a lot of cloudy days and very cold and snowy in the winter time. 

The evening show was by the ship's cast and they did a tribute to female singers -- Carl was impressed how they used the screens around the room to look like different components -- the curtains around the stage and the wall sconces were all just being displayed on screens, not physically there.

The same area up around the stage with different lighting later in the show.

We have been to a few productions by the Holland America cast and we're not overly impressed. We decided to give them "one last try" with this presentation and... that's probably it. We've really enjoyed the guest entertainers; the cast just seems lacking. But that's okay, there's lots of other things to see and do on the ship!

After the evening show, we went to a ballroom dance competition. We've gone to watch "Ballroom Dance Hour" a couple of times on the cruise -- there are a few couples who appear to be very good ballroom dancers and we enjoy seeing them. Five of the couples we've seen during the "Ballroom Dance Hour" participated in a competition that the rest of the passengers could watch and enjoy. We had dinner one evening with a couple from Australia that we had watched previously and who participated in the competition. We were watching looking down from the deck above, so we didn't have the best view, but it was still enjoyable to see our fellow passengers strut their stuff!

Sunday - day 10 - Akureyri, Iceland - part 4 - finishing up the day

Previous posts: part 1: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/sunday-day-10-akureyri-iceland-part-1.html

part 2: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/sunday-day-10-akureyri-iceland-part-2.html

part 3: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/sunday-day-10-akureyri-iceland-part-3.html

We were tired of walking, and although there was a free city bus, its schedule did not seem to match to our needs, so we walked back toward the downtown area.

One of the buildings on the pedestrian street in downtown - clean and neat!

Pedestrian street in downtown Akureyri

The Icelandic hotdogs were something we had been told not to miss...

There were lots of options on how to prepare the hot dog (toppings) - we asked for "traditional Icelandic" and I think we got "Everything!" They put the "toppings" on the bottom though, which was smart for eating without losing the toppings. One of the toppings that I really liked was fried onion strings (like French's fried onions). Since I usually treat hot dogs as "mustard-delivery-vehicles", having lots of toppings was a unique experience for me.

We were looking for a drug store / pharmacy / apothecary -- it was a bit of a walk to an indoor mall where we found one that was open. All of us (Joe, Pat, Carl, Patti) are fighting colds with coughs and we were looking for drugs! Carl and I had already looked in London and Norway for something like Sudafed, but they only sell decongestants in nose spray form. We got one kind of cough syrup before we left London, and got a second kind here in Akureyri. Thank goodness for Google Lens translate to help us decipher what we were buying! (The lady at the pharmacy counter was also very nice and helpful.)

One thing we had been told to look for was the special way Akureyri has red lights on their traffic signals...

... they are all hearts!

While we knew that these had been here before we arrived, we figured they put them up just to celebrate our 6.5 year anniversary!

Our tired feet were glad to make it back to the ship...

... a selfie before re-boarding.

In the evening, we went to the Magic Show by Yollin Lee...

He did some card tricks... 

... and some mind reading involving members of the audience.

All-in-all a long exhausting but very enjoyable day!  

Sunday - day 10 - Akureyri, Iceland - part 3 - Akureyri Museum

Parts 1 and 2 from Akureyri can be found here: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/sunday-day-10-akureyri-iceland-part-1.html and here: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/08/sunday-day-10-akureyri-iceland-part-2.html

We walked from the Botanical Gardens on our way to the Akureyri Museum.

As we walked, we saw these creatively covered trash cans!

And another one...

... this one tried to bite off Carl's arm -- Joe barely saved him from certain dismemberment!

I found this information from Google:

The trash monsters in Akureyri are ten playful, waste-eating outdoor sculptures created by local artist Jonna (Jónborg Sigurðardóttir) to encourage proper litter disposal with humor. First appearing around town, these figures are refreshed each spring to stand guard during the summer. 

Key Details: 

Total count: 10 different sculptures 

Creator: Local artist Jonna Jónborg Sigurðardóttir 

Purpose: Encourage people to put trash in its place 

Season: Placed outdoors for the summer season after spring touch-ups

Just to give you an appreciation of what these trash cans look like in other places...

...this one really looks the worse for wear -- the trash monsters are quite an improvement!

 We were heading for Akureyri Museum...

There was a church on the museum grounds...

Information about the church (it kinda seems like the English description might be less complete than the Icelandic description?)

Inside the church -- the blue and cream are peaceful colors.

From Google Lens: The painting is a traditional Icelandic altarpiece, showing a scene of the Last Supper, a common theme for Icelandic altar pieces.

Inside the museum...

A re-creation of a turf house

I was reading the description below about Ash Wednesday... got about halfway through the first paragraph...

"...the ritual of beating a cat out of a barrel..." What?!?!? 

Google provided some additional information:

The ritual of "beating the cat out of the barrel" (slå katten af tønden) is an old Scandinavian tradition practiced during Öskudagur (Ash Wednesday) in Iceland.

Today, the event is a harmless, festive holiday for children, very similar to hitting a piñata. A wooden candy-filled barrel, usually decorated with pictures of black cats, is hung up.  Children dress up in costumes and take turns hitting the barrel with a wooden bat. The child who knocks the bottom out to release the candy is crowned the Cat Queen. The child who breaks the very last wooden plank off the rope is crowned the Cat King.

The Dark History -- While it is lighthearted today, the historical ritual was literal and grim. In the Middle Ages and up into the 1800s, black cats were associated with evil spirits, witchcraft, and the plague. A live black cat was locked inside a wooden barrel. Adults or children would beat the barrel with clubs until it splintered apart. The goal was to "beat the evil out" before Lent. Historically, the terrified cat would leap out and flee, which superstitious townspeople viewed as chasing evil away from the village.

The tradition originated with Dutch immigrants in Denmark during the 1500s. Because Iceland was under Danish rule for centuries, the custom spread to Iceland, finding a strong foothold in the northern town of Akureyri around 1915 before becoming a nationwide Ash Wednesday staple.

There was this interesting photograph of children dressed up for Ash Wednesday.

Iceland's Independence Day was June 17, 1944.

Information about their celebrations and the path to independence. It is interesting that they voted for independence from Denmark when Denmark was under occupation by the Third Reich.

On another floor of the museum, there was a display about the UK and American occupation of Iceland during WWII. There was a display about Quonset huts (including a re-creation of one) that reminded me of Dwayne's and my search for a specific Quonset hut near Port au Choix in Newfoundland back in August, 2016 (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2016/08/getting-repairs-made-thursday-18august.html).

When we left the museum, we found a photo opportunity with cutout faces on those two children in their Ash Wednesday attire. Pat and I tried them out!

This was right outside Nonnahús (Nonni's house).

"Nonni's House is a museum in the Akureyri municipality in Iceland. The small wooden house, built around 1850, is one of the oldest houses in Akureyri. It was the home of the well known children's author and Jesuit priest Jón Sveinsson; also known as "Nonni"."

There was a room with many, many books that Nonni had written.

In another room were books about Nonni.

It was a tiny house, but interesting to view.

The museum admission allowed us to visit other museums in Akureyri, but we only visited one more (the Toy Museum) as we were getting tired!