Seyðisfjörður
Seyðisfjörður (SAY-this-fyoor-durr) is a dinky little fishing village of 700 people.
It exists as a cruise ship stop because [1] the fjord you need to go through to get here is nice and scenic and [2] they built a cruise terminal dock.
Legit, there’s nothing to do here. It’s kinda like a few if the stops on an Alaska cruise where you get off the ship, see the entire town in 30 minutes on foot, then wonder “why are we here?”
But there were some fun things to see and discover - so here we go.
Pulling into port this morning, we couldn’t see a thing due to heavy fog. Just as we arrived and the ship turned around, we caught a glimpse of a mountain.
Reminder that clicking any image will open it fully on your screen so you can see it without scrolling
Shortly after we docked, the Ponant ship we saw in Reykjavik pulled in next to us. It’s a luxury ship with only 156 passengers and it’s shaped like a speed bump.
The fog began to rise a little and the town became visible
It was a walking tour today - we basically went around that pond on the right of the above photo. That’s pretty much the whole town!
If the town looks familiar, you’ve probably seen “Trapped”, or the sequel series “Entrapped” on Netflix. It was all filmed here.
One thing that’s impressive about Iceland is that no matter how small the town, it probably has an art or music school. In this town of just 700 people, there is a thriving artisan community, some of whom enjoy decorating the buildings in town.
And that road in front? The pavement was in terrible shape and it cost too much to fix it every year, so they painted it and made it pretty instead.
It leads up to the blue church (Lutheran, of course).
The guide said, “If you’re wondering why it’s blue, it’s because we had blue paint on hand that day.”
The church, by the way, is officially called Seydisfjardarkirkja.
I enjoyed looking at the hymnal - although the majority of the tunes were unfamiliar until I got to the Christmas section.
I popped up Google Lens translator on the obvious “O Come All Ye Faithful” to see how different the Icelandic lyrics are.
It’s expected that they’d be somewhat different due to it needing to rhyme and fit in the metre of the melody - but wow, check out the last line!
I’m not sure I can sing that with a straight face!
On the other side of the pond was some sea-trash that someone repurposed into a bar.
Granted, the side that faces the water looks more inviting…
Not sure what “NO PANIC EHF.” Is supposed to mean, but whatevs.
Inside, it was really cute! (Pic taken through the window, as it didn’t open today)
At the end of town, there’s another nice waterfall, way bigger than this pic would suggest.
Our cruise ship absolutely dwarfs the town - and it has 230 more passengers than the town has residents!
OH. I saw another whale today and again, no picture.
The pond in the middle of town occasionally plays host to seals and on the way to lunch, we happened to see one - when I didn’t have my zoom lens camera. OF COURSE.
Lunch, however, was the best meal I’ve had on the whole trip so far.
It was at this little pub:
Which looks like this inside:
nd get this: the stellar meal was a grilled cheese sandwich.
No, really.
Now, I’m always up for a nice grilled cheese sammich, but this was as different as it was delicious.
First: served open face
Then: grilled brioche on the bottom.
A big leaf of lettuce on top of that (I know, I know… but hear me out)
Then a disk of Camembert that was just melted enough to run everywhere when you cut it.
A sprinkling of green onions on that, then a smear of raspberry/blueberry jam to sop your bread in.
It’s dead simple, yet absolutely revolutionary. It’s pungent, sweet, savoury, buttery, salty, and spicy. It’s ALL THE THINGS.
Anyway….
After lunch and a quick stop on the ship, I headed back out with the good camera to see if I could get a pic of a seal. OF COURSE, the one that was out on the rock earlier had gone. What is it with me and animal photos, anyway?
So I had a little hike up past the site where they’re excavating to build avalanche/mudslide diverters
The town is quite susceptible to those disasters and in fact they just had a bad mudslide two years ago. Amazingly, nobody was killed, but several people lost everything. The government of Iceland (plus the mandatory mudslide/avalance insurance you must carry as a homeowner here) made sure that nobody was financially ruined by the event, but they still lost their belongings, some of which were undoubtedly irreplaceable.
Further up the road, I saw another waterfall and hiked up the mountain until I got to the base of it.
At that point, I had just a half hour to get back to the ship. As I passed the pond again, there was a seal on a rock in the middle of the pond. I finally got a picture of some wildlife!
Dinner tonight featured “Tastes of Iceland” - I had reindeer medallions, which were very good. Very lean and very tender.
Rob went for a less-exotic chateaubriand, which he said was delicious.
Then off we went back out of the fjord - mostly fogged in again, so nothing much to see (aside from another whale).
Tomorrow is an “at sea” day with no stops, so I’ll go into some of the things we’ve discovered about life on board a Viking ocean vessel and how it differs from other cruise lines we’ve done.