Akureyri
Our stop in Akureyri was right at the port so we were able to just walk off the ship and didn’t need to worry about tendering which takes considerable time. Our departure times from Akureyri is 7:30PM so we had a lot of time to explore the city of 20,000 residents, the second largest in Iceland. It was a spectacular day for any outdoor activity. Most of our group did a full day bus tour but we decided to do a morning whale watch with a few others in our group. The whale watch departure was only a 10 minute walk from the cruise ship so we arrived in plenty of time for our 10AM departure.
For the first part of the whale watch we stayed close to the harbor where we did see a humpback and a minke. One was just next to our ship. After our time near the harbor, the tour took us out the fjord towards more open waters. On the way we passed by some beautiful scenery and a waterfall that was fed by a volcanic spring. As the water hit the ocean, steam rose around the base.
We were fortunate to get good views of humpback and minke whales as we traveled down the fjord. They were close enough to get some decent photos.
After our whale watch we decided to go back to the ship for lunch and change clothes before heading out to walk around the city center. The city has a pedestrian street with lots of shops including a large bookstore/gift shop and a yarn/knitted clothing shop. We stopped in both. We found a number of yarn/knitted goods stores even in the small villages and all of them have beautifully knitted scarves, mittens, hats and of course the amazing Icelandic sweaters.
Since our cruise ship didn’t leave port till 7:30 we had an opportunity to have dinner in town. We enjoyed some wine and a light dinner at Eyja Vinstofa, a wine bar and bistro. After dinner we enjoyed the 15 minute walk back to the ship. The sun was still shining and there wasn’t much of a breeze.
In the evening we enjoyed some of the entertainment on the ship including a comedy performance by Kevin Bozeman before heading back to the room. I stayed up late and watched a movie in the room while updating this blog. After the movie I went out on our veranda to see if I could see any stars but it is still light past midnight and it was pretty cloudy - not a good sign for eclipse viewing tomorrow. Maybe I’ll set the alarm tomorrow night for 1AM to see if I can see the Persiied Meteor Shower which is ending tomorrow.