- Reykjavik
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Iceland
The world’s most northerly capital combines colourful buildings, quirky people, a wild nightlife and a capricious soul to devastating effect. Most visitors fall helplessly in love, returning home already saving to come back.
The city’s charm lies in its many peculiar contrasts, which, like tectonic plates clashing against one another, create an earthquake of energy. Reykjavík offers a bewitching combination of village innocence and big-city zeal. It’s populated by darkly cynical citizens who are nevertheless filled with unstoppable creativity and enthusiasm. In summer the streets are washed by 22 hours of daylight; in winter they’re scoured by blizzards and doused in never-ending night. Reykjavík is a city that treasures its Viking past but wants the future – the very best of it – NOW!
Iceland's Route 1, the main road in the country, is a circular route just designed for a road trip. We did it by bicycle, but a car is also effective - just watch out for sections on the eastern coasts which aren't yet fully tarmacked. If you follow the whole route you'll pass through Europe's largest desert as well as passing glaciers, icebergs, and spectacular coastline. Good, cheap pizzas can be found at many of the island's petrol stations along the way!
Around the outside of Iceland.
The best discount card - don't go to Iceland without one. Voyager Card saves you up to 20% off many restaurants, bars, shops and hotels in the centre of Reykjavik. It pays for itself in a few hours or even a few minutes if you use it to book one of the partner hotels.
Don't listen to any scare stories about hiring a car in Iceland. The roads are extremely well-maintained and even in the depths of winter the golden circle route is an easy drive. We went in January and hired a car for £60 from National - a coach trip of the same route would have cost £80 per person.
A great hotel based in the centre of Reykjavik. I was worried it was going to be more of a budget hotel but it's nothing of the sort! Ask for a room at the back and you'll get a large room with it's own fridge, television and wifi. Very comfortable and warm - just what you need when in from the cold!
Go to Iceland. Iceland is currently having a few economic problems so perhaps you can get cheaper hotels and food than in Tromso. Reykjavik is more lively than Tromso but the city skies are not quite as dark due to more street lighting. I only saw a poor display of aurora here but enjoyed the atmosphere of the city more.
Thermal lagoon with better views than the Blue Lagoon near Reyjavik (you look over the town and towards Lake Myvatn) and half the price. Also steam baths etc.
Just back from a visit at the end of October, after the kronor had crashed and this made things cheaper, though still about the same as the UK.
We loved a second hand bookshop off the main drag and just down from Cafe Rosenberg and near the old Cirkus club. It was piled high with books, with a fair few in English. It has a vibe of total happy chaos.
Our favourite cafe was the one on the corner of Laugeamur and the street where Cafe Rosenberg is - it's a yellow house. Very good coffee, cakes and atmosphere.
We ate at two very good places down at the harbour. One is called "The Baron" and is a fish market. The owner takes his leftover fish and makes the most delicious crayfish soup you can imagine. You sit on old barrels and
drink beer while sipping your soup from a cup which is very atmospheric. If you get fed up with fish just by it is a very good hamburger joint with terrific burgers and fries. Even cheaper is the hot dog stand round the corner from it selling Icelandic sausages in a roll. Very reasonable.
Best bargain for shopping were the Red Cross
charity shops on Laugeamur. I got a beautiful
Icelandic wool jumper there for about five pounds.
And do try the public thermal pools of the city. They are more "real" than the Blue Lagoon, which though fabulous, is rather touristy in feel.
Café Rosenberg, Lækjargata 2, 101 Reykjavík
The Baron, Geirsgata 101
Ruins of a settlement-age hall that has been preserved in its original location. An exhibition has now been created around the ruins focusing on life in Reykjavik around the year 871 +/-2. Multimedia technology is used to explain construction methods/what life was like on a settlement age farm.
At 600isk (approx GBP4) the entrance fee is a bargain.
Location:
Aðalstræti 16
101 Reykjavík
Tel: +354 411 6370
www.reykjavik871.is
In City Centre adjacent Austurvollur Square
Sitting atop six huge hot water tanks on a hill in Reykjavik, Perlan (the Pearl) restaurant is one of the top eateries in Iceland, with prices that go with its reputation. One floor down, however, is the inexpensive cafe, where extended local families gather on the weekend to sip a beer and eat Italian ice cream. Surrounded by windows on all sides and with access to the viewing platform outside, this is a great place to take in all of Reykjavik and the mountains beyond. As the sun moves towards the horizon, the surrounding landscape becomes bathed in a wonderful golden light (weather permitting of course!)
Perlan - Öskjuhlid - 105 Reykjavik
www.perlan.is/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=102
Tel: (+354) 562 0200
I've just come back from Reykjavik; high point was the Golden Circle trip. Head out early to catch the mid-Atlantic ridge, the waterfalls, collapsed volcanos and, especially, the geysers in one day.
I went with Black Tomato, photos at the link below...
<www.clerkandtellerexplorers.com/index.php/trips/trip-2-iceland-hit-the-frozen-north/golden-circle-275.php>
Many activities in Iceland can only be done via coach trip from Reykjavik; if you go to the places where they occur you won't always be able to do them; the only exceptions are the popular places and/or popular things like horse riding.
Go to Tourist Information; there are several official/unofficial ones in "downtown" Reykjavik.
2 beers cost $22.00 USD.
Duty free @ Keflavik Int'l Airport
The stretch at the bottom of the hill that runs towards the man-made lake is where it all happens in Reykjavik. A couple of doors down from Café Rosenberg you can check your email at an old fashioned cyber café, and five doors further down is a great fish bar, where you can eat as much as you want for 2,400 knr (about £20) – the best deal in town. We found it cheaper to have a large meal rather than snacking.
Apart from the pay phone opposite Cafe Rosenberg there are no street pay phones. Daytime public phones can be found in the banks and post office when you turn left out of the cafe.
The café is just down from the tourist information office, near the S1 bus service. While at the tourist information office get your self a tourist pass, which gives you loads of benefits like free bus rides and free access to musuems etc.
Café Rosenberg: Laekjargata 2, 101;
tel: +534 551 8008;
www.visitreykjavik.is/yellowpages.asp?element_id=863
A small record shop where you are encouraged to listen before you buy whilst sipping a free coffee. The shop is like an Icelandic version of Rough Trade.
It holds in-store performances which get so packed that people are squeezed up against the windows. Fill in a form to claim back tax.
www.12tonar.is/
Skólavördustíg 15
101 Reykjavík
+354 5115656
12tonar@12tonar.is
Icelanders love to quote facts about their country. Not the usual mind-numbing statistics about how many tons of iron ore they export (they don't!) or what the gross national product per capita is (actually higher than many industrialised countries, but mainly because they have a very small population). They will tell you that until a few years ago, beer and dogs were not allowed, that they have no trees, that all homes are heated by geo-thermal energy, and that Iceland has one of the highest literacy rates and life expectancy ages in the world.
You will very soon learn that Icelanders have a fierce pride in their country, its history and its achievements. One of the first things they will tell you is that they read and write more books per capita than any other nation on earth. Every Icelander is an aspiring poet, and many do more than merely aspire. The total population of the country is 300,000. The central plateau is uninhabited and uninhabitable, with the majority of the population living in the Reykjavik area.
This might be the only country in the world where the telephone directory lists people under their given names. This is because if Sigurd has a daughter, called Helga, she is known as Helga Sigurdsdottir. When Helga marries Sven, she doesn't change her name, but their son Arni would be known as Arni Svensson, or if she were unmarried and had a son, he would be Arni Helgasson. Complicated? It's almost too simple to be true. And in order to help things along, if there are 6 Jon Olaffssons, then the profession of each is listed next to his name.
This is a country where crime is almost unknown. People leave cars unlocked in the street, even in Reykjavik, and see no reason why they should not do so. Friday and Saturday night in Reykjavik downtown can be pretty rowdy affairs, with all the young people out in the streets and circulating around the bars and discos. By 3 or 4 in the morning most of them are pretty much the worse for wear, but there is little or no violence and they all return safely to their homes, or at least to someone's home, to do the same thing the next weekend.
The Icelandic Parliament (the oldest in the world) meets in a small brown building in the centre of Reykjavik, and anyone can walk in and go up to the public gallery and listen to the proceedings. There is no security whatsoever. That made me realise, more than anything else what a close knit community this is. Why, my Icelandic friend said, would anyone want to do any harm to one of our politicians? Another quaint touch is that when an Icelandair plane touches down at Keflavik, the country's international airport, whilst the English announcement made by the cabin crew is 'Welcome to Iceland', in Icelandic they say 'Welcome home'.
The Icelandic language is related to the modern Scandinavian languages, but these have evolved so far from their medieval roots that an Icelander and a Scandinavian would not be able to understand more than about a third of each other’s conversation. Paradoxically, if an Icelander of today met up with his 12th century counterpart, they would be able to chat to each other with no difficulty, so little has modern Icelandic changed over the centuries. Many English words are derived from ancient Norse roots which gave birth to Icelandic, and it is interesting for example to read the Icelandic subtitles of films whilst listening to the English soundtrack, and to hear words like 'svindel', meaning 'to cheat'.
Iceland is closer geographically to North America than to Europe, and despite the name of the country, it is not as cold as one might imagine, being surrounded by relatively warm water. Of course there is a lot of ice around, in fact much of the interior is covered by glaciers which can be crossed by specially adapted vehicles, this being one of the many interesting and attractive physical features of the country. Notwithstanding the country's northern latitude, the temperature when I arrived on a late November afternoon was + 2'C, compared to the chilly -9 of Luxembourg at lunchtime.
Iceland lies on a very thin part of the Earth's crust, a physical phenomenon which literally made Iceland what it is - a volcanic island still in formation. Only 23 years ago, a new island, Surtsey, was born. Visitors can see and touch living proof of the ongoing activity when they visit the area of the Geysirs, some 50 km outside Reykjavik, with natural hot springs bubbling up from the interior of the Earth. It is almost uncanny to walk around in the silence, standing on snow, with the ice-capped mountains in the background, and to look down into the crystal clear water and your feet, knowing that it is at boiling temperature! Every few minutes the silence is broken by the sound of one of the Geysirs going off, as the pressure of the water bubbling up from underneath breaks through the cooler layer on top, throwing jets of boiling water and steam high into the air at regular intervals in one of nature's most impressive live shows.
It's one hell of a place ... go and check it out!
Café Rosenberg is one of the few places in Iceland where you can get a good meal at a reasonable price (reasonable by Icelandic standards, anyway). It's a pub, restaurant and the centre for live music in down town Reykjavík. Every Friday and Saturday night there is live music and sometimes also during the week. All kinds of music, from local troubadours to world famous musicians. Very popular with tourists as well as locals, so you may meet people from all four corners of the world in one night. Check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
Café Rosenberg, Lækjargata 2, 101 Reykjavík
Perlan is a revolving restaurant, sitting above the city with views over the harbours and beyond. It is a short taxi ride from the city centre.
Although revolving restaurants are perhaps a bit naff, the views really are sublime (especially at sunset) and the food was great.
It was on the expensive side - £150 for two people – but everything is in Iceland.
Eating is never cheap in Iceland, but this Reykjavik restaurant offers real value for money. The menu is imaginative and the food beautifully presented.
There are many different tour operators offering coach journeys to visit one, more or all of the major geographical tourist attractions reached within a day's drive of Reykjavik - Gulfoss Falls, Geyser, the unpronounceable place where the European and American tectonic plates meet and so on.
Instead, hire a car from one of many agencies in the city, which will be promptly delivered to your hotel, and make your own tour instead. It's cheaper, and much more exciting, particularly if you head off early in the morning. Ten minutes from the city centre and it's hard to see any evidence of human life at all save the road, and you can appreciate the majesty of the landscape that much more.
Átak Car Rental
Smidjuvegur 1
IS-200 Kopavogur
Iceland;
tel: 354 554 6040;
fax: 354 554 6081
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