Reykjavik; the Harpa Conference Center and a Helicopter Ride over the Litli-Hrutur Volcano Eruption!

Our last day in Rekjavik was spent mostly shopping around, and then walking down to the waterfront to see the famous sculpture “The Sun Voyager”. The sculpture, placed here in 1990, is built to resemble a Viking long-ship.

We then walked down the waterfront to the Harpa Conference Center. I wasn’t sure we could even walk into the center, but we found the front doors and discovered it has a shopping center, a cafe, and a box office for upcoming concerts. The interior is very cool! If you are a fan of the “Black Mirror” series on Netflix, there is an episode called “Crocodile” that features this building. Be warned though, it’s a very dark episode.

We also discovered a tour of the center was about to start, and there were exactly two tickets left. Perfect! The below photo is in the performance theater named after the Northern Lights, Nordurljos.

The walls of the concert hall have a very unique design to allow for acoustic changes via the openings in the walls, and curtains behind those openings. As an audio junkie, I loved this sort of detail.

Our tour guide showed us why it’s named after the Northern Lights, as the walls are designed to light up during performances.

I loved the reflections on the floor of the last set of colors!

Our guide showed us a setup for a free concert later that afternoon. It’s a beautiful spot, but we came back for the concert later and it was a major snoozefest, despite the setting.

This is the gorgeous interior just outside the main performance hall.

Inside the main performance hall, called Eldborg, with seating for up to 1600 guests.

There are two reverberation chambers on either side of the Eldborg hall, and our tour guide, who just so happens to be a classically trained vocalist, gave us an impromptu performance! Listen to the echos after she finishes each line! Amazing, particularly for an audio geek like me!

Another shot of the interior. I took a bunch to see if I could find the exact set of stairs used in Black Mirror. I’m a sucker for film based locations!

Our last stop was a room designed for small conferences and parties with a view over Reykjavik. It would be an incredible wine tasting venue!

We saw a boat pulling in and we knew Tony and Julie were on a Puffin tour, so I snapped a shot with my 10x zoom lens. Sure enough, Tony and Julie were on the bow of the boat! Too funny!

That evening we had a long awaited helicopter trip to see the current Litli-Hrutur volcano eruption. We had originally booked a tour to hike to the site, but we decided the helicopter made a lot more sense than hiking over 11 miles. Dont’ we look dapper in our headsets!

The view of Reykjavik as we take off. This is a big damned city!

Our pilot pointed out that this was Iceland’s version of the White House. Putting it on an island keeps the press away…surprised they haven’t tried this back home!

Here we are nearing the volcano. It was really churning away! The smoke you see is from ground fires caused by flowing lava.

We then did several fly-bys of the volcano. I’m disappointed in the clarity of these videos, but I think it was due to shooting through the glass of the helicopter.

The next video is my favorite. Please note the hillside in the first part of the video, with dozens of people on top of the hill who have hiked the 18km to see this once in a lifetime experience.

The pilot also flew over the eruption area from last year, which was interesting. The lava flows are very pronounced based on the older lava from eruptions thousands of years ago.

We then did another fly-by for one last video shot. I have to be honest, video just doesn’t do the experience justice….it was an absolutely amazing site seeing it up close and personal! So amazing I’m still trying to convince Kim to do it again before we fly home!

One last still shot. This was an incredible experience! The helicopter pilot from “Nordurflug Helicopter Tours” was excellent! If you are going to be here anytime soon, just book it!