Iceland Day 6 - City Card Sunday

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Our City Cards activated at 9 am. We were in the bus by 10 headed to the culture museum where we learned about the thousand year history of the island, it’s remarkable peace, and its importance as a preserver of ancient texts.

We went back the the apartment for lunch. Then, we planned a couple adventures in the northeast part of the city. We walked to the Sveinsson Sculpture museum, set amidst the Laugardalar neighborhood. With the sun and the cool air, we and strolled about the grounds and touched and photographed the organic, feminine sculptures: a suckling babe, the nude shapely female form, a broad shouldered person carrying water.

The facade of the bounding was white plaster and ancient looking, like the pyramids, and domed in one part. Inside, marble floors and a broad foyer with coffee and a mock workshop. We were through the museum (with its paper weight models of Sun Voyager) and starting down the arching steps into the rotund hall when a short dark man interrupted us. We tried to show him our City Cards (free admission to the three city art museums) but he dismissed them. “Let me give you some context for your visit,” he said. As he walked us back to the workshop and explained the artists’ history, the houses’ history, the larger context and progression, I could hardly keep his gaze. Blue eyes, slightly off, seemed to see through me. He must’ve been a sculptor.

So, we went through a life’s progression in brass, stone, copper, steel; a life that started in the organic earth and ended in the cosmic eternities. We ascended, too, up to a second story dome, reminiscing of Bucky Fuller and my father, and playing with the pano function on my phone.

Then we walked north looking for the ferry to Videy Island. The walk took forty minutes or more because of my poor ability with detail.

At the ferry, the cold wind blew and I pulled on my black wool hat. We also strapped on our binos and waited till five o’clock when we boarded the ferry as its only passengers. But, at the dock of Videy, about sixty people got on and the ferry tugged away. We watched it reach the port across the channel, then tug away for ports downtown. In a short hour, it would be back to get us, the last ferry of the day.

Videy is an island a few hundred meters away from Reykjavik. The island is uninhabited, with art and walking trails. An historic mansion (modestly Icelandic) houses a restaurant where we munched on pastries before strolling through the Angelica prairie along sheer black cliffs with nesting gulls. Back on the ferry we waited for the crew to drive the island to make sure no one was left. In fact, it was just us two and our waitress.

The bus ride home was a bit confusing, but we made it in the end and settled into a cozy wool, soft white night.

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