Reykjavik from the Perlan

In the winter sunshine Reykjavik is stunning. I set off to walk to The Perlan  just after 10 when it was just beginning to get light, sunrise was 10.55. The futuristic museum is built on top of the city’s hot water tanks and includes an ice cave, a planetarium and a spectacular 360 degree viewing platform where I watched the sun rise.
I walked back to downtown Reykjavik via Hallgrímskirkja the Lutheran church designed to look like basalt columns of cooled lava. I loved the minimalist interior, the advent wreath, extra, had four plain white candles. None of that rose/pink episcopalian malarkey.
By 2.30 it was beginning to get dark, a brief visit to the frozen at the edges Tjörnin Pond where there was a great collection of terns, geese and whooper swans with their bright yellow beaks, and a shore stroll back to the Cabin Hotel.
I spent the remainder of the evening in the local swimming pool. I did a few lengths in the warm outdoor pool, I think it must have been 50m, you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you because of all the steam, a surreal experience. Best of all were the “hotpots” varying in temperature from 9 degrees to 42. I luxuriated in the hottest one, working up from 38, watching the thermometer drop to minus 2. Oddly I still felt very warm after walking outdoors back to changing room and then eating a hotdog on a frozen bench. And my hair was just about dry underneath my woolly hat.