I started the day by walking on Adalstrati, the street on which several of the oldest wooden houses in town are located. Most of them today functions as restaurants and hotels (the picture below is a restaurant called Fish Market).
Then, I continued to Kirkjustraeti where the Parliament House is located. The old part of the building is connected to the new part. As can be seen also in many other buildings in the the same square (Austurvöllur), Icelandic architecture seemed to be smart and good at bridging the old and the new.
Around the corner between Kirkjustraeti and Posthusstraeti stands Domkirkjan.
While I was walking and shooting photographs of these buildings, I thought in my mind that if the wind maintained its strength, I would have to postpone my trip to Videy again to some other day.
Having thought so, I found myself walking to the direction of the Skarfabakki harbor where the boat to Videy leaves. The harbor was around 4 km from where I was staying, quite a walk again. Wind was as strong as usual. Because of the furry schedule, I thought I would stop at Laugarnes to visit the Sigurjon Olafsson Sculpture Museum which was a modern building situated by the sea.
While approaching to the museum, I saw a couple of nice houses on the bay. On the one hand, I wished I could live there. On the other hand, it might be too windy and too chilly to live there.
Along the pedestrian path to the museum, there were geese families. Although they were cute, I was a bit afraid of walking towards and passed them. I was told when I was little that geese could be cruel and attack humans when they are afraid that people might harm them. Well, I survived...
The fact that Sigurjon Olafsson Sculpture Museum is by the sea made the architecture of it even nicer. Every detail in the space is well designed and has a special function. The building used to be Sigurjon Olafsson's studio and is now the museum featuring his non-representational sculptures and works of other contemporary artists. The museum has its own cafe at the glass veranda of the building. It has so great ambience that I had to spend some time to enjoy cake and coffee, and of course the sea and the waves. By the way, the homemade (museum-made) carrot cake with vanilla sauce was really tasty and not even expensive (together with coffee only 550 ISK or around 4.5 Euro).
When leaving the museum, I noticed that the opposite house is full of funny elements. The owner must be a sculptor, I guessed...
I continued my way to the harbor. I saw a very long graffiti, quite impressive.
Finally, I arrived at the harbor which is actually very small. The ticket was 800ISK for a return trip (5 minute ride each way). If the harbor is small, the boat will be called tiny. As I expected to see a real furry boat, I asked the ticket seller a stupid question "where is the boat?". He seemed to wonder why I ask because the tiny boat was already there. Anyway, the boat left at 4.30 p.m. I wasn't alone on the boat. A family with two kids were there as well.
Having been on the wavy sea for 5 minutes, I was on Videy. Videyjarstofa (Videy House) was the first attraction I saw. Built in 1752-1755, the house is one of the oldest buildings in Iceland and is the first building constructed of stone in Iceland. Its first purpose was to be the residence of the treasurer Skuli Magnusson. Videyjarkirkja (Videy Church) was also built for Skuli Magnusson and consecrated in 1774. It was one of the oldest churches in Iceland.
Instead of taking the main route, I took the north path, which was very narrow and sometimes unnoticeable, to the east of the island, which is called Heimaey (Home Island). A lot of various kinds of birds were around. Some were frighten when noticing me walking towards them and seemed to fly as fast as they could with a high speed movement of their wings.
After about 30 minutes, I arrived at the no-longer-existing village in Sundbakki. The village was once lived by people and their families working for the Million Corporation, a fishing company founded in the early 2oth century. The picture below was a 150 ton water tank the Million Corporation installed for supplying ships in the harbor. In 1970s, Videyingafelagid, the association of former islanders and their descendants, converted this tank into a clubhouse.
I had a seat at the armchair in the picture below for a while and ate the pancake I bought from the market yesterday.
The remainder of the a house. If I remembered right, this house was owned by the manager of the company (as it was the one closest to the sea).
As can be seen on the layout plan, there were many houses in the village.
This was the schoolhouse built in 1928.
From the village, I walked on the main path instead of sea-front path.
Standing on Skulaholl, I could see the harbor as well as Videyjarstofa (Videy House) and Videyjarkirkja (videy Church).
I passed the house and the church. I was disappointed to see that the cafe in the house was already closed. A cup of tea would make me survive until the next boat came in 2 hours. Anyway, I did survive without tea. I continued to the west side of the island, which is called Vesturey (West Island). The landscape of this part seemed more dramatic than the side I had walked.
The photo below is Eidid, the narrow neck of land.
Around the neck of the land, there was a salt water pond called Gardstjörn.
Black stone beaches are on both sides of the neck.
Pairs of columnar basalt pillars are the American artist Richard Serra's work of art Afangar (milestones). Created for the Reykjavik Art Festival in 1999, the aim of this work was to frame the landscape of the island, inviting people to walk around the island. Did it succeed? I can't say but I didn't walk around, just because I was too tired.
The path was interesting in terms of its components; some part was full of flowers while some other was filled with round stones.
The photo below was taken from Stora Tjörn (Big Pond). It was said to be sometimes drying up completely.
On the boat and the way from the harbor, I met two Americans. We were chatting a bit this and that. After separating from them, I walked along Saebraut, deciding to go seeing the sculpture Solfar. At the intersection between Saebraut and Snorrabraut, I noticed that the stones on the boundary maker of the seashore were rather shinier than the rest at the point where the two street meets. Is this a work of art? I don't know but this was done by intention for sure!
Nice plants grew along the path...
This is the sculpture Solfar or Sun Voyage I wanted to see yesterday but the wind didn't allow me to do so. And I ended my third day sightseeing with this sculpture.
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