Djúpivogur

The final new port on our Iceland’s Natural Beauty cruise was at Djúpivogur, a small fishing village of 400 on the southeast coast of Iceland. Even though the Viking Sky was carrying well short of its 930 passenger capacity, our presence was certainly evident in the village. We took a walking tour on a gorgeous sunny day, but others were more ambitious:

Fishing had taken on a different form for some of the locals, with a salmon farm floating nearby in the fjord:

The harvesting of cod from Iceland’s waters has been on-going for centuries. In Djúpivogur they even built a giant tank for code liver oil storage:

Today, though, the tank has been repurposed as a makeshift concert hall. We had a musical performance in Icelandic that took advantage of the unusual acoustics of the tank.

Djúpivogur is also the site of an unusual art installation, situated on the piers that used to hold up a pipeline. The Eggs of Merry Bay includes 34 large granite eggs that represent the native bird species of Eastern Iceland.

Located at the harbor, Langabúð is the oldest building in Djúpivogur and houses a museum, cafe, and tourist information center.

After Djúpivogur, we were scheduled to call at Heimaey Island, but rough waters there turned our next day into a sea day which meant that we arrived early back in Reykjavik in plenty of time for our return flight home to Boston.

It has taken me 17 months to finish posting about our cruise around Iceland. While we would still like to actually visit Reykjavik, since this cruise we’ve already flown through Keflavik on our way to our next big journey, a Christmas cruise on the Elbe with Viking River Cruises from Berlin to Prague with an extension to Poland. That’s what’s coming up next on Halfway There Travelers in what I hope will be a much shorter rollout!