Sunday, July 23, 2023

This was Scott’s birthday! We made sure to book an extra night at the end of our cruise in town so he wasn’t spending his birthday traveling home from a vacay – how depressing is that?

We disembarked our cruise in Reykjavik with a plan to take a city bus to our hotel. But I failed to take into account that this was a Sunday and we would have had to wait an hour for the bus by the time we got to the stop. And we are too frugal to spend inflated prices on a taxi. So instead we walked the 2 miles dragging our luggage. But the weather was pleasant and the route was really pretty along the coastline trail.

Since we didn’t have any more Hilton points, I opted to book us in a local hotel called Storm Hotel for our outgoing night. Kind of on the outskirts of what I would call super centrally located, but definitely much closer to the action than the Hilton was. I failed to take any room pictures but this was definitely a great choice (bravo to me). Very clean, modern, quiet. Modest-sized room but this wasn’t a place we were going to hang out for long periods of time. Nice breakfast buffet – it couldn’t possibly compare to the Hilton’s buffet, but it was certainly good. Highly recommended.

We wandered a bit around town including another stop at Te & Kaffi – we loved their food treats!

We took a long walk out to visit the dedicated Omnom shop, which we thought was going to be like a big flagship store with free samples but ultimately we could have gotten the same selection at a lot of tourist shops around town. The chocolate was… ok. Still a lovely souvenir option for folks back home, largely due to the lovely packaging and portability.

We had lunch at Icelandic Street Food. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Soups were super yummy, affordable, and you got free refills! We were very very happy here. Scott’s even smiling at a receipt, and that isn’t normal.

After wandering around town for awhile and refreshing at the hotel, we hit up 3 spots to celebrate my man’s birthday.

First, Bjor Gardurinn which happened to be on the ground floor of the hotel across the street from our own. This is totally our jam. Large list of taps (mostly local, including their own house beer), lovely environment, and we got a brie snack. Again, highly recommended.

We, of course, had to make another stop at Einstok. We were so thrilled that their Reykjavik tap house is as lovely as their beers (more photos in yesterday’s post). Please start distributing in Washington State!

Finally, Bastard Brew & Food. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound very Icelandic. But they also had a great tap list, and check out these beautiful flatbreads!