It began simply enough with a walk to the iconic sculpture Sun Voyager, less than two blocks from our apartment.  It was a brisk sunny day, a departure from the previous day.

We talked with a German couple and they graciously took our photo.  They were embarking on a 14 day adventure on the Ring Road surrounding Iceland – I was so jealous.

I absolutely do NOT condone this  and hate that it has started in Iceland.  Many lovers in Paris chain locks to the bridges crossing onto the island with Notre Dame, then throw the key in the water.  This is vandalism folks – just saying.

We leisurely made our way to the restaurant for our late lunch reservation.  Good thing it was so late, we slept in until after 10am, definitely unheard of especially when on vacation!  We had read repeatedly that eating out in Iceland was expensive, go for lunch instead of dinner and save yourself some kronos, so that was our plan.

I thought this was a cute way to block off a pedestrian walkway.

Our chosen restaurant is an older establishment, located within (what is now) a residential area – which gave us plenty of opportunities to find interesting green spaces residents had created.

We found a little grassy park in the middle of four roads that met and this sign.

It was a lovely reminder of the way things used to be.

Our restaurant was Prir Frakkar Hja Ulfara or ‘Three French Coats’.

Before ordering bread, butter, tuna spread and dried/chipped cod (upper right corner)arrived to whet our appetite.  I stuck to the bread.

I ordered this very tasty salmon ‘rose’ as my appetizer – cute and tasty.  In addition to hunks of tomato, sliced grapes were part of the dish.  OMG – these were the sweetest grapes I have ever eaten and it totally went with the salmon.

Eric got the herring appetizer.

Of course you can’t have a major celebration without wine and this was no exception.

My meal was halibut with lobster sauce.  Their lobsters are similar to our shrimp and we generally refer to them as langoustines.  They were delicious!  The sauce was so rich you definitely wanted to take some of the bread and sop up any remaining goop.

Eric order a seafood gratin.

I won – just saying.  🙂

Towards the end of the meal, we were the only ones in the restaurant.  Several of the workers, and also the owner were eating their meal  with us since most patrons were gone.  I’m sure you’re shocked, but Eric started conversing  with them and that’s when we found out one of the people was the owner.  He shared this was our 25th anniversary and talked about various Icelandic meats.  They brought out a sampling of whale (sorry Karen, and others) for us to taste.  It was sitting in a pepper sauce (we found out this week that Icelanders definitely love their sauces!).

Yes, I tried it and didn’t mind it.  It tasted like beef.  Of course, my taste was covered in the sauce, as Eric continued to remind me.  He had different thoughts about the taste and he had it sans sauce.

We had to finish our meal with desserts – Eric won this time. He ordered blueberry ice cream accompanied with numerous fruit syrups while I got vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce.  Yep, he definitely won.

We had a super nice waitress, from Italy and she’s heading back there shortly.  As so common with us, the people you meet and talk with truly add to the overall experience.  Unfortunately, I missed getting a photo of the others we talked with since by the time we were done, they had left.

We finished our anniversary day with walking to a local brewery down by the harbor.

Talking with the bartender, Eric met a stateside resident working in Iceland, originally from Alabama.

No surprise, we tasted several dark beers.

 

Walking back to our apartment we both responded that this was an amazing 25th anniversary.  Who would have guessed that 25 years ago, getting married in Indiana would lead to this day in Iceland – definitely not us.  🙂

 

Ginny