Isafjordur

The ship docked at Isafjordur. This is a small fishing town tucked down a fjord with a population of less then 3000. Its incedibly scenic. The town sits mostly on a tiny peninsula on the fjord and is surrounded by towering volcanic hills. 

Its pretty place, alledgedly typical of this part of the world. Colourful houses with painted corrugated tin roofs.

We walked through the town past the local museum. We were a bit museumed out so we just poked about outside where they had an eclectic collection of fishing artefacts, whalebones and lots of lovely rusty things - how I love rusty stuff

Dr Fred was sadly lacking in widerness time... the weather had not worked for him the previous night and his star gaziing session was cancelled.  To replace this he had done a Q&A session instead - well received but not an outdoor session. So nature was needed and the map indicated a walk up the side of a hill to a view point. It wasn't too far and in fact the path topped some man made revetments that presumably had been built to protect the town from avalanche damage. 

It was a stunning vista across the fjord. Huge banks of glacial snow laying high on the hills and though the binoculars you could see hundreds of streams running into the water below. 

We reached the viewpoint and, of course, Dr fred had to go further but I sat on a rock and just took in the very splendid view. 

We walked down back through town stopping off at the Isafjordur Cultural House - the town library with a small but interesting art gallery.

Kniited flags....

The building had at one time in the 1860's been a hospital and it had some equipment on show - some dating from 1866 and them some from the 1950's 

We walked back through town and couldn't help noticing that a number of the houses were built with funny corners added on at an angle - exactly like our porch at home! Sone were just windows, some had the bottom walls cut away but all of them were set at that angle peculiar to our house... connection with Iceland??? 

This sleepy little fishing place is often cut off from the rest of the world for months at a time... I cant help wondering how that would feel - its a long way to anywhere - beautiful but very isolated. 

That night we had a beautiful sunset as we sailed of into the night.  Low cloud meant still no stars but it was very splendid sitting on the back of the boat wrapped up well watching the sun go down and the birds circling the night skies.