With the cancellation of our South Shore Adventure tour due to weather and road conditions, we had the opportunity to visit a couple of Reykjavik museums in addition to using the freed up time to visit the Raufarhólshellir Lava Tunnel/Tube and the Höfði House. This post discusses our visit to the Whales of Iceland Museum.
Whales of Iceland is located next to (and in front of) FlyOver Iceland. It's a large warehouse-style building and that vast amount of space is required because it holds over 20 life-size models of whales. Some of the whales that are modeled are enormous!
Although I've read about the size of different species of whales and have been fortunate to see some whales on whale tours in Alaska and Mexico, I didn't fully appreciate how large they can be until I stood next to the models of these different species of whales.
The models were colored to show the types of scrapes, cuts, and other markings seen on whales.
Seeing and standing next to the life-size models of whales helped me understand their sizes. The audio narration provided much more insight including discussion of their sizes, prominent features, eating and mating habits, and more.
There is a small cafe at the end of the narrated tour, but we had arrived just as they were opening and this cafe was not staffed.
Seeing the whales in Whales of Iceland is not the same as seeing whales directly in nature, but at the same time seeing models of whales in this fashion allowed us to see and learn about them in far better detail than one can see them in the wild when they are wholly are partially submerged. In addition, to see this many difference species of whales would require a lot of time and money. Whales of Iceland offers a comfortable environment to better understand the sizes and other characteristics of these sea mammals.
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