Hello from the sunny northern town of Akureyri, one of our favorite places due to the scenery and the awesome public pool. Not much to report lately, food-wise, thus the radio silence. Lots of meals at “home.” We’re having a relaxed trip otherwise. Honestly, with all the news coming from home in the US, it’s been tough to get motivated to post.
When in Akureyri, we have to go to the all-you-can lunch/sushi buffet at Rub23—once is enough on each trip. It’s a great bargain, not the best sushi but other nice fish preps and Spring Onion loves their chicken katsu. We don’t have bottomless bellies so don’t max out our money.
Happy hour at the hostel Akureyri Backpackers now includes all the beers and not just the bottom of the barrel Boli or Gull. B had a nice beer from Húsavík Öl, where we had a pleasant visit a few years ago.
Happy hour one particularly sunny evening in the Botanical Garden at Lyst , which used to be called Cafe Laut. Spring Onion bought some gumballs from Icelandic girls. He was charmed by their pop-up candy shop.
My favorite tiny design shop in town is a must-do for me. Owner gifted me with some Danish licorice candies.
The police in Akureyri don’t go to donut shops, they go to the ice cream shop. There were about 6 or 7 cops in line behind us and they were in a good mood.
We visited the interesting tiny town of Hjalteyri just 30 minutes north of Akureyri. A beautiful setting in a fjord and there are artists here, along with a climbing gym and scuba diving center. We checked out the contemporary art space that’s in an abandoned herring factory. We love checking out towns like this with the unexpected. We also had our fanciest meal of our trip at Eyri Restaurant. Spring Onion had already had his daily ration of pylsa beforehand so we got him homemade bread and butter, which he declared “really good.” The cod tongues were not available, so B and I shared the deep-fried skate wing which was well-prepared and light, but B was a bit lukewarm about it. The daily fish special was halibut and it was delicious; we couldn’t put our finger on all the flavors, but there was a wonderful smoky element and the accompanying shoots, roasted tomatoes, and puree of some sort were all delightful. B had delicious beer from Segull 67, another brewery we enjoyed visiting a few years ago and I had a crisp French white. We were only sad at the small-ish portions.
We have ~2.5 more full days left. We’re staying back in Hveragerði. I’m sure it will be more of the same in terms of food (eating rudimentary meals in our cottage) so here are some landscape photos to distract y’all. 
and even more sadly, we are home in Boston after a great trip.
