Videy Island

I've known about the Imagine Peace Tower for some time, and knew it was in Iceland, but didn't realize that it was on Videy Island, just a super short ferry ride from Reykjavik.  Once I had this knowledge, though, there was no stopping me from wanting to go visit!  We looked up the ferry schedule and were quite confused that there were a couple of different ports with different days and times listed.  Rich asked directions of a woman at the visitor center but she wasn't quite sure and told us which port she thought was right.  I had a different idea, and then Rich and I were not understanding each other when we were talking about it, so we drove off to one port where we couldn't find a ferry or any information. Then we drove to the other one, which I was sure was not it, but it was. LOL  Anyway, we were in a little bit of a time crunch because we'd decided we were going to drive the Golden Circle the same day and we had to be back across the water before it was too late.  We had planned on staying only an hour at Videy Island but the ferry schedule was such that we would have to be there over two hours.

 We were on the ferry with these cute little school kids on a field trip.  They took up the whole inside of the ferry so the captain told us we could sit outside on the deck.  Fun--it was cold and windy! LOL

 The ferry trip is literally just a few minutes!

I loved their cute little hats

Videy Island is considered an important historical site, with excavations that indicate there were people living here in the 10th century.  It was also the site of an Augustine monastery from 1225 to 1539 and a popular destination for pilgrims during the Middle Ages.

We came to find the Imagine Peace Tower but spent the first hour walking all over the place trying to locate it!  There are other pieces of art and sculpture around the island.  This is a piece celebrating 100 years of Christianity in Iceland (made in 1994).

 Sculpture by US artist Richard Serra

 Church

We asked the teachers with the little kids from the ferry, but they didn't know where the Peace Tower was, either. We finally saw a person outside the cafe so she took us in and gave us a map. We'd been wondering how we would kill two hours or more waiting for the ferry, but now we were afraid we wouldn't find the Peace Tower in time!

The Peace Tower was commissioned by Yoko Ono after the death of John Lennon.  During certain times of the  year, beams of light shoot out from the top of the tower but it was not lit during our visit.  This is the base, which has "Imagine Peace" written on it in 24 languages.

We had a lovely lunch in the cafe before rushing down to catch the ferry at the last minute!  I had some delicious pumpkin soup with homemade thick brown bread and Rich had what he called the best apple cake he'd ever eaten! I was so glad we got to go to Videy Island!