August 14, 2023 - Monday - Isafjordur, Iceland
Isafjordur has long been a favorite with us. In 2008 the Voyage of the Vikings stopped here and we loved it. In 2015 Prinsendam stopped here and we loved it. Today pursuit stopped here and we liked it.
We were really looking forward to this port. We have many fond memories of our walks here. We remembered a folk museum near the pier. We found it after a short walk not because we recognized it, but because we knew where it should be. It was closed for renovation. This is badly needed since it now looks run down. There was a small grassy area in front of the entrance with a sea-life art exhibit last time. Today it was a stoney patch of rubble. This is clearly a museum oriented toward cruisers with proximity to the port. It seems that the dearth of cruisers during Covid has taken a serious toll.
Next we walked through an industrial area of marine repair and supply shops. That took us to the inner harbor closest to downtown. Here is where we saw some very nice sailboats before. Hooray! Today we saw some very nice sailboats. Across the road from the harbor was a low concrete wall with painting on it. The gentleman at the tourist office back then explained that it was a community project to permit teens express themselves in art, not graffiti. Today the area was overgrown with weeds. We tried to find the tourist office but it was gone. Not a good omen.
We had decided that we wanted to revisit downtown, the church and cemetery, a neighborhood and the park with the whale bone arch. We got to the church by following the harbor road. It had been painted an unattractive color and it was closed. We had gone inside on each of our previous visits. This was disappointing. The cemetery was in good condition and at one gravesite a small crane was being used to mount a new headstone.
Not far from the church was a museum building with a very large front yard. We had gone inside before, but today it was closed. So, we marched on toward the park. It was close by and we went in to look for the whale bone arch. Wow the trees and shrubs have really grown. We found the arch and took our pictures. On the way out we admired the flower beds that are meticulously kept.
As we exited the park we were facing a large hospital complex. Last time we were here this was just being excavated. It has been nicely completed. We continued walking until we entered the downtown area. Again we found many empty shops. There were very few people on the streets.
We walked from the commercial district into a neighborhood. Ahead of us was a large schoolyard. we walked in and checked out the play equipment. As we did this we found an open door to the school. We stuck our heads in and were sort of greeted by an employee. Alice asked if we could take pictures. The forceful no led us to retreat outside. This was the direct opposite of the response we had in Athens at a school last year We strolled out of the neighborhood and noted that the housing here seemed newer and was all apartment buildings. Nobody was lounging about so we guessed all were at work. It is hard to tell how residents are employed without a tourist office, but we assume the fishing industry is the predominant employer.
Now we walked back to pursuit. this route took us deeper into the bowels of the industrial area. We watched in fascination at one factory where an ice making company was conveying chopped ice out of the building into large containers outside. A forklift operator waited for the top of three containers to fill. Then he moved it to the side. While that was happening the conveyor continued to dump ice into the second container. So it went. It seems that these containers will be delivered to fishing vessels for icing the catch onboard.
We got back to the port and after passing security we went into a shed next to the exit. Inside were maps. We had picked one up on our way out. Now we checked to see if anything else of interest was here. That is when I noticed a sign on the wall that said internet. It had the user name and password. I quickly used my phone to check it out for speed. Wow! This was FAST. We boarded Pursuit and i got my laptop. Since there were no other users in the shed I wanted to get right in and work on my blog.
This worked extremely well. Occasionally a few other passenger logged on and things slowed down, but that was infrequent. I was able to upload hundreds of pictures and add them to my blog pages. Then I published the pages. I finished the entire blog for our Norway cruise.
This was a satisfying day. Some things were not as good as we experienced on previous visits, but Isafjordur seems to be doing well.
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