Day 9 Monday 27th June 2016 Akureyri
Akureyri is in the North of Iceland and is at the end of Iceland’s longest fjord Eyjafjorour.
The ship was able to dock close to the town and after breakfast we left the ship and tried to connect to the Internet just on the quay. We walked along Drottningarbraut and paused to look at Azura back along the quay.
We walked alongside the fjord, here are some views looking back to wards Azura.
Some of the art we passed.
We crossed over and walked back towards the town centre passing historic buildings in the history of Akureyri and then past the Akureyri Church up the hill and into the pedestrian precinct.
We went into the Blaa Kannan restaurant for a coffee and access to the Internet. The restaurant was very busy with passengers from all the ships in port but the Internet connection was fast!
Book shop purchases
On the opposite side of the pedestrian precinct was a bookshop and I picked up my reading material for the rest of the cruise.
Also in the book shop we picked up a postcard that described our dinner companions experiences at the Blue Lagoon in Reykjavik.
Street art in Akureyri
Further down Hafnarstraeti, on the gable end of a building was this beautiful street art by Guido van Helten.
I asked a couple of passers by (who were promoting whale watching trips) was there any more street art in the town?
We were directed to go back to the street with the church and look to our right. Here are some of the street art images that I found there and here are all the other pieces of street art in Akureyri that I found.
Cafe Amore
We walked back down the pedestrian precinct and came to a square and on one corner was Cafe Amore. We sat outside in the sunshine and watched the world walk by. The cafe had a good selection of local beer and it was at a reasonable price too.
We spent the last of our Icelandic notes and coins on a round of local beer and two packets of nuts!
We left the cafe as the rain started and walked back to the ship. From our balcony I watched the runway at the had of the fjord and the planes taking off and landing.
Azura backed out of her berth and passed the now empty berth of Holland America’s Rotterdam. We then passed the expedition ship Bremen.
One last view of Akureyri from the ship as we left.
Whales in Eyjafjordur
From the leaflets that we had picked up in Akureyri we hoped that we would see whales as Azura moved out of the fjord towards the sea. There were three tourist whale watching boats way down the fjord and as we neared them we could just about make out the whales that they were tracking. The only problem for us was that by now it was pouring with rain and the whales were a long way from the ship.
Here’s one a little closer.
Image of the day – whale slapping its tail
Looking back down the fjord I followed closely the whale watching boats and was lucky enough to catch the “image of the day” of a whale next to one of these boats.
As Azura reached the mouth if the fjord the sun shone and we could see whale spouts again in the distance.
But after 2.5 hours of looking we had to go for our evening meal. A word of warning about P&O, choosing a salad as a main course that is also a starter does not mean a larger portion! The only change was a plate rather than a bowl as the portion is exactly the same size.
Singing in the Playhouse was a four man group called Troubador. They were excellent and after the show we confirmed that one of their members was also a member of a group that we had seen Aurora last month.
No casino again as we headed back to UK ports.
We had clear skies as Azura sailed North, here’s the sea view at about 10:30 pm.
As we neared the Arctic Circle here’s my selphy just before midnight.
There was no sunrise or sun rise again today.
It was a good job that we had already sent our postcards from Isafjordur using my iPhone app, as the P&O Concierge rate was still £1.85 and the last ‘post’ at 3:30 pm.
After two days at sea we next called at Lerwick in Shetland.