Epilogue: Scotland to Iceland 2023 #14

There’s one story that I missed in my coverage of the Iceland road trip. When we got into Dalvik we discovered that there were 4 places to eat in town: a cafe that also served meals, a restaurant that served the same menu pretty much every day of the year, a pizza place, and a higher end restaurant specializing in local cuisine. We decided to go for pizza only to discover that the place was closed and, when I checked on Trip Advisor today, it looks as though that has become a permanent closure.

One of the people at the hotel told us about Gisil, Eirikur, Heigi kaffehaus bakkabraedra. They have one menu consisting of fish soup, salad, bread and tea or coffee.

Dinner

We thought we’d give that a try. The soup refills were free and I think she gave us an extra piece of bread too. We ordered dessert and drinks and the bill for the two of us came to $75 CAD. You just have to get used to that when you travel in Iceland.

Gisil, Eirikur, Heigi, is a fascinating place decorated with antiques of all sorts. Just inside the door was a shelf that held all manner of wooden planes, so of course, I had to have a good look at those.

Some of the decor. Not sure about the pants.

It wasn’t busy when we were there and we had quite a chat with one of the owners. She told us the story of the three characters the restaurant is named for and then, when she found out we were from Canada, she produced a children’s book in English with the same story. Unfortunately I didn’t make notes on the plot of the story and I haven’t been able to find it online. It was something to do with the brothers wanting to build a house to keep out the light and the various shenanigans that ensued. If you happen to find it please let me know.

She told us that people had asked her for the story in English so she searched and found the book on the internet and ordered it from Canada. It was a library discard with the card pocket and the card still in the back. Even more interesting, the writer and illustrator are both Canadian and the book was published in Red Deer Alberta. She also told us that Davik has a festival that draws 30,000 people to it. Dalvik is a small place and I don’t know where they put them all. We left the restaurant full, contented, and marvelling at the interesting coincidences that sometimes crop up when we travel.



The second night in Dalvik we ate at Gregor’s. The food was good. I had the cod but the experience wasn’t nearly as much fun as eating at kaffehaus bakkabraedra.