Reykjavik

Our last 1.5 days in Iceland were spent exploring the capital city. Reykjavik is an odd place. It’s surprisingly cosmopolitan, yet still has the look and feel of a quaint, simple fishing village. We based ourselves at Hotel Reykjavik Centrum located in the heart of the city’s oldest district. From here most sights were within easy walking distance.

We dined at the Fish Market on our first night in town. The restaurant, housed in the basement of an old wooden building, offered a delicious tasting menu of local delicacies prepared in an Asian fusion style. This was one of many fine dining establishments, complimented by an equally impressive array of cosy cafes throughout the city.


On Wednesday we wandered through town and eventually stopped outside Hallgrimskirkja, an imposing concrete church that sits on a hill above the city. The church’s radical design is based on volcanic basalt, a rock formation of sharp-edged rectangular pillars that can be found throughout Iceland. Earlier in the week we’d stopped at a beach near Vik to marvel at these rock stacks stepping their way up a wind-swept cliff face. I couldn’t resist the urge to scale such an unusual formation.


Hallgrimskirkja’s profile is dominated by a central 75-metre high tower. A quick elevator ride takes you to an observation deck offering stunning, panoramic views of Reykjavik and the surrounding countryside. Permission to build the church was granted in the early-40s on condition that its design included a tower able to contain a radio mast for the nation’s new national broadcaster. However, by the time it was completed 34 years later, this requirement longer mattered.


A bleak plaza in front of the church is broken only by a statue of Leifer Eiriksson, the Viking considered the first European to discovered America. The statue itself is a gift from the USA. This is one of many statues and public artworks dotted around the city.

After lunch at the popular people-watching locale, Café Paris, we made our way to the Culture House. This building includes a display of original vellum manuscripts that represent the earliest known record of the Viking Sagas and settlement in Iceland. The Sagas are popular folklore stories of Viking life in the middle ages. Until the 20th Century they were near compulsory bedtime reading for Iceland families everywhere.


The Culture House also contained a fascinating exhibition about Surtsey island. This landmass off the south coast of Iceland was created between 1963 and 1968 by a series of continuous subsea volcanic eruptions. The exhibit included dramatic video footage of these eruptions, as well as tracing the steady spread of plant and animal life in the decades since.

Our last day in Iceland was spent ticking off a diverse range of final sights. First up, was a museum literally located in the basement of our hotel. Reykjavik 871 +/-2 contains the preserved ruins of a 10th Century Viking turf-wall constructed long house. Its remains were discovered by chance when our hotel embarked on a major restoration and expansion project. The ruins are now the earliest known building in Iceland.


Next up was a visit to City Hall, a modernist building on the edge of Tjornin, a small lake in the centre of town. It contains a detailed relief map of Iceland, painstakingly built from layers of cardboard over four years by a team of local surveyors. The island’s rugged coast, towering mountains and bold icecaps can be witnessed in all their glory.

We then stopped for coffee at Perlan, a complex wrapped around towering hot-water tanks on Oskjuhilo hill near the city’s inner boundary. It was then on to the Blue Lagoon for a final soak before heading back off to Keflavik and our flight home. Iceland had proven a memorable destination – one that met and exceeded almost every expectation we’d brought with us. This remote, quirky island had delivered on the promise of a truly unique vacation.