A Sunny Day
Apr. 19th, 2005 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetToday we finally got a really gorgeous day and it was perfect timing, since we planned to spend the day wandering all over the city.
We left the hotel just after 10am and made a brief visit to the Domkirkjus, or Cathedral, across the street from our hotel. A typical Scandinavian Lutheran church (Iceland being 90% Lutheran), both exterior and interior are quite plain. The Althing was locked, so we headed over to the harbor, past the lovely mural on the customs house, to the Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum. Reykjavik has a number of different art museums, several with similar names, all fairly small and distributed all over the city. This one had two special exhibits, one of imaginary sea creatures made of glass and sand, and the other a fairly large exhibit on comics. Not being a huge comics fan, or being able to read Icelandic, my enjoyment of it was somewhat impaired, but they had one room of Dave McKean´s work that I enjoyed very much and a few other pieces that were pretty cool. In one of the main halls downstairs, a bunch of teenagers were practicing for some kind of fashion show, doing their best bored-is-beautiful runway walks down a sheet of silver material.
From there we took a bus from the center of town--after first getting on the wrong bus and having to race across traffic to get the right one--to the Kjarvalsstadir, another municipal art gallery dedicated to the work of surreal landscapist, Johannes S. Kjarval. Unfortunately, the galleries of his work were closed for some reason and the one that was open was a mixture of fairly standard op art and architectural drawings of churches, neither of which really grabbed our attention.
So we set off walking in the direction of the Asmundarsafn, another art gallery, this one in the home/studio of sculptor Asmundur Sveinsson. It was pretty far away, on the outskirts of town, and when we arrived, at 12:15, we realized it didn´t open until 1pm. Having come so far, we were not to be deterred, however, so we explored the sculpture garden and then sat in the sun until the doors opened and we were allowed in to see the three rooms of Sveinsson´s work. The best was the dome at the top of the building. The art there wasn´t notable, but the room itself was wonderful, acoustically, and we were alone, so we whistled and whispered and sang and made popping noises to our hearts´ content.
We set off back along the seaward edge of the city. I had hoped to get our film developed--I´ve been shooting like a madwoman, for a change--so we trekked all the way back to the center of town to the Kodak shop I had noticed. What I hadn´t noticed was that the charge for same-day developing was over $30/roll. Abandoning that idea, we realized we weren´t far from the hot dog stand pointed out to us as the city´s best, so we wandered back over to the harbor and had a couple of very tasty dogs for lunch, standing around outside a little red shack with an extensive menu (hot dogs: 200kr, coke: 120kr).
Back on the museum plan, we hiked up to the Einar Jónssonar Sculpture Museum, only to discover that it is only open on weekends this time of the year. Fortunately, there is a wonderful sculpture garden at the back of the fortress-like house that we were able to wander in, discovering his whimsical sculpture that combines mythological figures and art deco style.
Finally we reached Hallgrimskirkja itself. Built in honor of the Rev. Hallgrim Petersson, 17th century author of a series of hymns that is the best selling Icelandic book of all time and still very central to the culture and religious practice of Iceland. It was built in the 20th century, entirely of concrete, and designed to evoke both the pipes of an organ and the columnar rock formations of the Icelandic coast. The interior is very light and simple and the pipe organ, which we had the privilege to hear played during our visit, is the most striking feature. We took the lift up to the top of the 73m tower and looked out over all of Reykjavik to the mountains and the sea. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and our view was clear for miles.
Descending, we returned to the main shopping street and tried to find the Phallological Museum, billed as the world´s largest collection of preserved animal penises. Sadly, it seems to have closed since our guidebook was printed. Checking the guidebook further, we realized we were running out of things to see, at least things that were open. But we strolled up to the hill surmounted by a Jónssonar sculpture depicting Ingólfur Arnarson, the First Settler of Iceland and sat for a while on the benches there, soaking up the sun, and then wandered out along the pier to enjoy the smell of the sea and the view of the mountains across the harbor.
From there it was only a short stroll back to the hotel, where we were very glad to rest our feet for a couple of hours before dinner and try to figure out what we can squeeze in tomorrow before our flight leaves.
We left the hotel just after 10am and made a brief visit to the Domkirkjus, or Cathedral, across the street from our hotel. A typical Scandinavian Lutheran church (Iceland being 90% Lutheran), both exterior and interior are quite plain. The Althing was locked, so we headed over to the harbor, past the lovely mural on the customs house, to the Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum. Reykjavik has a number of different art museums, several with similar names, all fairly small and distributed all over the city. This one had two special exhibits, one of imaginary sea creatures made of glass and sand, and the other a fairly large exhibit on comics. Not being a huge comics fan, or being able to read Icelandic, my enjoyment of it was somewhat impaired, but they had one room of Dave McKean´s work that I enjoyed very much and a few other pieces that were pretty cool. In one of the main halls downstairs, a bunch of teenagers were practicing for some kind of fashion show, doing their best bored-is-beautiful runway walks down a sheet of silver material.
From there we took a bus from the center of town--after first getting on the wrong bus and having to race across traffic to get the right one--to the Kjarvalsstadir, another municipal art gallery dedicated to the work of surreal landscapist, Johannes S. Kjarval. Unfortunately, the galleries of his work were closed for some reason and the one that was open was a mixture of fairly standard op art and architectural drawings of churches, neither of which really grabbed our attention.
So we set off walking in the direction of the Asmundarsafn, another art gallery, this one in the home/studio of sculptor Asmundur Sveinsson. It was pretty far away, on the outskirts of town, and when we arrived, at 12:15, we realized it didn´t open until 1pm. Having come so far, we were not to be deterred, however, so we explored the sculpture garden and then sat in the sun until the doors opened and we were allowed in to see the three rooms of Sveinsson´s work. The best was the dome at the top of the building. The art there wasn´t notable, but the room itself was wonderful, acoustically, and we were alone, so we whistled and whispered and sang and made popping noises to our hearts´ content.
We set off back along the seaward edge of the city. I had hoped to get our film developed--I´ve been shooting like a madwoman, for a change--so we trekked all the way back to the center of town to the Kodak shop I had noticed. What I hadn´t noticed was that the charge for same-day developing was over $30/roll. Abandoning that idea, we realized we weren´t far from the hot dog stand pointed out to us as the city´s best, so we wandered back over to the harbor and had a couple of very tasty dogs for lunch, standing around outside a little red shack with an extensive menu (hot dogs: 200kr, coke: 120kr).
Back on the museum plan, we hiked up to the Einar Jónssonar Sculpture Museum, only to discover that it is only open on weekends this time of the year. Fortunately, there is a wonderful sculpture garden at the back of the fortress-like house that we were able to wander in, discovering his whimsical sculpture that combines mythological figures and art deco style.
Finally we reached Hallgrimskirkja itself. Built in honor of the Rev. Hallgrim Petersson, 17th century author of a series of hymns that is the best selling Icelandic book of all time and still very central to the culture and religious practice of Iceland. It was built in the 20th century, entirely of concrete, and designed to evoke both the pipes of an organ and the columnar rock formations of the Icelandic coast. The interior is very light and simple and the pipe organ, which we had the privilege to hear played during our visit, is the most striking feature. We took the lift up to the top of the 73m tower and looked out over all of Reykjavik to the mountains and the sea. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and our view was clear for miles.
Descending, we returned to the main shopping street and tried to find the Phallological Museum, billed as the world´s largest collection of preserved animal penises. Sadly, it seems to have closed since our guidebook was printed. Checking the guidebook further, we realized we were running out of things to see, at least things that were open. But we strolled up to the hill surmounted by a Jónssonar sculpture depicting Ingólfur Arnarson, the First Settler of Iceland and sat for a while on the benches there, soaking up the sun, and then wandered out along the pier to enjoy the smell of the sea and the view of the mountains across the harbor.
From there it was only a short stroll back to the hotel, where we were very glad to rest our feet for a couple of hours before dinner and try to figure out what we can squeeze in tomorrow before our flight leaves.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-19 05:36 pm (UTC)I have this wonderful picture in my head of sun streaming through glass windows on the two of you first singing, then making popping noises, then giggling, then doing it all over again because no one has come to tell you to stop! I can't wait to see the pictures!