In the air again!

What a difference a few months has made. Accessing Terminal 2 at London’s Heathrow today there were no indications that travel is anything but completely normal. No tests beforehand or extra forms, just a very speedy check-in with very helpful ground crew and, despite a slight hiatus in Security while their system was examined, I was through in less than thirty minutes. Nothing even to merit a photograph!

Queues were longer and there were far fewer masks to be seen. As for shopping, Dixons is no longer at the airport and all the technology outlets have become Inmotion. Just as well I found the card reader before I left home as there was a real dearth of anything photography related though I did manage to find, at the regular high street price, the power bank I had promised myself after a 23 hour power cut a few months ago.

And three of us managed to meet up for a coffee before the flight having set up a Whats App group before leaving.

 So, back to Iceland it is. I suspect the blue sky surrounding the Icelandair logo on the plane as we soared above the clouds is the bluest we’ll see in the next couple of weeks! The clouds are low and we’ve just been told the temperature in Keflavik is 7 degrees with a north easterly wind. And, sure enough, there were a lot of them! We arrived to drizzle!

However, once again we were greeted with smiles and were through immigration in the promised ‘less than five minutes’, bags were on the belt shortly after and we went in search of the tour leader. Off to the van and we were headed for Reykjavik where we found Von Hotel with very little difficulty, caught our breath and set off to the Sea Voyager and the Harpa concert hall. Last time I was here the wind blew me backwards today, although strong, it was helping me along the way…

I really enjoyed the Harpa today as we saw it busy as well as quiet and the contrasts between the tourists in their outdoor gear and the very smart attending a recital!

Walking back into the centre to deposit our cameras and make for dinner we came across the classic view of the church, Hallgrimskirkja, with the rainbow road in front of it

And, finally, all pretty tired and hungry we set off to Reykjavik Kitchen ( currently rated 2nd among traditional restaurants in the city) where we enjoyed a good dinner. Four of us decided on the cod which was amazing and accompanied by an interesting mix of vegetables.

But sleep called…..