Ísafjörður

Steve Edwards
Aug 10, 2024
4 min read

Day 10

After another wonderful day yesterday we had dinner once again in Alexandria. It was black tie and evening dress night, or in our case, jacket and tie (both of which had to be bought before we boarded) and cocktail dress, which I did have already but only one - for 4 nights and everyone else has a different one each night - oh the joys of living casually in Portugal. Anyway we were happy.

We had another great laugh with Donna and John, our dining companions. Di and Janet don’t do the formal evenings so it was just the four of us. Another good meal, Steve thought it was his best so far - French onion soup, beef wellington and trifle. My starter was excellent - smoked salmon cannelloni, and the main course was fine - sea bass, but we do live in Portugal so what can I say, then a chocolatey thing for pudding.

Afterwards we went to Carmen’s to watch the resident show company, the Headliners, do a show based in a pub around Ed Sheeran, Black Eyed Peas and Lewis Capaldi songs over a glass of red wine and a sherry. The show was great fun and very enjoyable.

Then back to the cabin to sit on the balcony for a while and then to bed with curtains pulled so the sun didn’t wake us up at 4am. Bed was at 11.30 and it was nearly dark by then. 🤪

We woke this morning to extremely high mountains topped with snow. Isafjordur is tiny but larger than Grundafjordur. However the ship has been able to dock so no tendering.

Our plan is to go to a bike shop about 15mins away to pick up our pre-ordered gravel bikes and to go off around the headland. We aren’t due to pick up the bikes until 10am and it is now only 8.30. We’ve had breakfast so are doing our usual of sitting on the balcony with a coffee. But it’s pretty cold - only 10 degrees so we are well kitted out. Did I mention I also bought angora socks yesterday which I am wearing today and they are gorgeous. I wish I’d bought more. We are using all our new warm purchases from along the way and are also glad of the warm clothes we bought with us.

Just back from our ride and you can’t wipe the smile off my face. What a morning! We loved it. The walk to the bike shop was very straightforward and they were ready and waiting for us. I’d been in touch with the lovely owner, Tyler, who’d suggested both which bikes we needed and the route we should take.

The bikes were fabulous gravel bikes and fit us perfectly. They also supplied helmets of course and Tyler kindly leant me a pair of his gloves for which I was ultimately very grateful. We didn’t have proper cycle kit but what we had worked perfectly (including the angora socks 🤣).

We headed north west out of the town on a good cycle track. We were going to take the old road that ran from a town called Hnifsdalur to Bolingarvik, a total of 15km and relatively flat. The road hugs the sea on one side and mountains on the other. It ceased to be used when they built a tunnel through the mountain. It is no longer passable by car and even on the bikes we had to get off a couple of times to negotiate rockfalls. The view was once again spectacular and I couldn’t stop smiling. We didn’t spot any minke whales but we did spot a couple of minks. Sadly we didn’t see any other type of whales either even though some hump backed whales and orcas had been spotted.

We stopped in the sweetest little cafe in Bolingarvik that Tyler had recommended, called Einarshus. It was of typical Icelandic build and boiling hot inside due to the extremely warm, geothermically heated radiators 😀. Bearing in mind it’s only 10 degrees outside, that was very welcome. The interior was so quaint and almost looked Victorian. Whether that is typical or not I don’t know but it was great to go inside an Icelandic building without loads of other tourists. Steve ordered a cake, I didn’t, but two arrived and well, you just have to don’t you. The coffee was good too.

We then headed back. It had started to drizzle heavily so we did get rather wet, but we weren’t cold. It seemed easier on the way back, perhaps the wind was with and perhaps it was a bit more downhill but whatever, it was much quicker. So we decided to go on past the town and out the other side. There is an airfield and a golf course on that side with the road once again hugging the sea and the mountains. It passes Naustahvilft or the Troll Seat. As the story goes, another troll was racing to get home before daylight and arriving early, sat to cool her aching feet in the fjord. When she moved on she left the peninsular of Isafjordur, the deep harbour where her feet had been and the flat seat where she had rested. It is well know as a great hike.

We didn’t make it that far, to rest or otherwise but turned round at the golf course and took the bikes back to Tyler’s shop, The Fjord Hub cycle shop. Although we had only done 36km we were tired as we have done no cycling recently, soaking wet and we’re just beginning to get cold. So we headed back to the boat after dropping off the bikes. It was exactly 2pm and we’d only hired the bikes for 4 hours anyway. The gloves Tyler had leant me were so good I bought a pair.

We then dumped all our wet kit on the cabin floor including my brand new rucksack which now looked like it had been swimming in a muddy pond 😂. I then headed to the laundrette with two large loads and despite encountering the washing police, I was able to get everything washed and dried.