Embarcation and Grundarfjörður
Our embarkation on the Celebrity Silhouette was pretty uneventful. We traveled the short distance from the hotel to the port on a charter bus with our travel group. Embarkation was quick and efficient, and we spent most of the rest of the day getting oriented. We had an early dinner at the Blu restaurant on board and attended a performance in the main theater by Tom Franek, a very energetic pianist/comedian. We were not sure we wanted to attend but were really glad we did. He was entertaining and very talented doing piano “tricks” as he played music by Elton John, Liberace and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Our first port stop was in Grundarfjörður, a small fishing town on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland. We did a small group tour of the peninsular arranged by one of our fellow passengers. Our tour guide/bus driver is called Simon. His name is not actually Simon but when he pronounced his actual name he said it was too difficult for non Icelandic speakers to pronounce so he said Simon was close enough. He is a former teacher and has been doing touring for about 15 years. He had an incredible knowledge of the history of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula and Iceland in general. Our full day tour took us to some of the sites around the peninsula with stops at some beautiful waterfalls, the Black Sand Beach and Lóndrangar Basalt Cliffs, the Arnarstapi village where we saw thousands of tents being set up for the eclipse, the Búðir Black Church and Tunga Beach where harbor seals rest on the rocks. While we didn’t see seals we did find some beautiful birds. Our last stop was at Hengilssvæðið, also called The Game of Thrones Island which was featured in the series. Simon shared that he was an extra in the filming and showed up for a few seconds. He even had a speaking line and his family threw a watch party for the episode. Unfortunately his line was cut but he said you can see him in the crowd for about 5 seconds. Everyone enjoyed this and all of the other stories he told.
At the end of the full day tour we tendered back to the ship, had dinner and a drink with friends and called it a night. The tour involved a lot of walking and paths on uneven terrain so we were pretty tired. Tomorrow is another port day with a half day excursion.
