With a population of over 20,000, Akureyri felt like a real city. We took an excursion that led us out of the city. Our first stop was the Laufas museum. In the 1800s, people lived in turf houses. Laufas is an example of a turf house for a wealthy family. These houses use stone and wood for their structural strength. They use turf to insulate the roof and walls. As you can see in the picture, the house looks quite attractive from the outside. The inside is a different story. They are small, have a low ceiling, and are exceedingly dark. Once inside, you can move from unit to unit using small doorways. (No doors, just a small opening in the interior wall.) The effect is to create a cramped labyrinth of interior space.

Our next visit was to one of the top sites in Iceland, the Godafoss Waterfalls. In the year 1,000 AD, the chieftain symbolically threw his pagan idols into the waterfall, marking the country’s peaceful transition to Christianity. It’s certainly an impressive site.

Our last stop was a botanical garden. There were numerous flowering plants in full bloom. It was a delightful site.

Today and tomorrow are sea days. The crew are becoming very imaginative in inventing entertainments. Today we have a “theft”. We are invited to be detectives, looking for who stole the jewelry.