Akureyri is Iceland's northern capital, as they call it. It's the second-largest city in Iceland with a population of a little over 18 000. It's a big city for Iceland standards at least, many outsiders, including me, can't really call it a city, more like a town.
The last time when I was in Iceland I just drove right through Akureyri and didn't even stop for a bit, time was a short supply. This time however I had a mission to stop there and spend a night to see more of this place.
Basically, Akureyri is built on a hillside and is situated in a fjord so you can get a nice overview in some places.
Of course, as usual for Icelandic settlements, you see colorful and bright streets.
This is the city center, I think. Or at least a place you come to see as a tourist. With all the gift shops and restaurants, it was a quite busy location. Looks like a ghost town lol, empty streets in the photo. I just chose the right moment to take the shot, there were some people, trust me 馃榾.
Obviously, there were many great-looking restaurants and diners but we didn't go to any. The average cost for 2 persons to eat out in a restaurant is about 100 Eur (ca 113 USD). And this is the price when eating in an average restaurant and not the most expensive food. Want to visit a fine dining restaurant? Good, prepare your wallet.
We had visited so many restaurants already in previous days that we decided to make food ourselves in our campervan and save money for one evening.
Here you can also see an Akureyrarkirkja back there.
In Akureyri, there is also a huge outdoors botanical garden. I did a post about this yesterday, if interested go see it.
Overall, Akureyri is a cozy small "city" and I definitely recommend making a stop there when traveling in this area. Tho I still find the charm of many small towns of Iceland to be more special. For examples like Seydisfjordur or Vik.
