Reykjavik Reviewed

Reykjavik is a small city (110,000 people), and a lot can be seen in a day or two. In the city center, a walk around Tjornin (the town pond), a look into the City Hall, the Cathedral (quite a small one), Austurvollir Square, and a walk along Laugavegur, a pleasant shopping street. Outside the city is Thingvellir, an incredibly beautiful rift valley, and extremely important in Icelandic history--the Althing, (the Icelandic parliament) first met there a thousand years ago.

Quick Tips:

Reykjavik has a lot of cultural activity for a city its size, with several good museums (which of course concentrate on Icelandic art). Recommended are the Iceland National Gallery on Tjornin, Kjarvalstadir (Reykjavik Art Museum) which is about a mile from the city center, Arni Magnusson Institue on the University campus, with original illuminated manuscripts of the Icelandic Sagas. Icelanders are extremely musical people, with an amazing number of local bands and high quality classical music too. There are many good restaurants all over the city center with a big variety of cuisines. Just be prepared to empty your pockets: eating out cheaply is not easy in Iceland (even McDonalds or Pizza Hut meals can easily cost -15.)

Best Way To Get Around:

Reykjavik is very easy to walk around in, except when gale force winds (not at all uncommon) make that a bit difficult. There's an excellent bus system that is easy to use and will take you to any part of the city. Day passes are available. Taxis are very expensive, but in bad weather (like the windstorms, rainstorms, or blizzards that come from nowhere), they can be really useful.

The Hotel Saga is a first-class hotel all the way. It's expensive, but worth the extra money, especially if you are on a 1-3 night stopover visit to Iceland. The breakfast buffet included with the price of the room is fantastic, and considering the cost of eating out in Iceland, a great way to start the day.

When you stay on a stop-over tour, Hotel Esja is often picked. It's not exactly in the city center, but since Reykjavik isn't huge, it's about a 20 minute walk to Austurvollur, the city's main square. It's the equivalent of a 3 star hotel, with good quality service, a nice breakfast buffet, and helpful staff. There's also a tour reservation office in the hotel for various day-trips outside the city. The building is 'nothing special modern', but the rooms are comfortable. There are nice views on the north side of Mount Esja. There's a Pizza Hut on the ground floor that's convenient but mighty expensive. One nice amenity in the area is the swimming pool complex in the Laugadalur Park, about 10 minutes walk from the hotel. It's got a nice sauna and outdoor hot-tubs with piped in water from geothermal springs. It's open year round and is even more fun than during the summer, and is a good way to see Icelanders relaxing.

The Golden Circle tour takes a group of about 15-20 people on an 8 hour tour of some of the main natural and historical sites of southern Iceland. The first stop is usually Hveragerdi. It's a tourist trap, but it's interesting because there are large greenhouses where tropical plants, fruits and vegetables thrive year round in geothermally heated glassed-in gardens. Then there are short visits at the original Geysir, which no longer spouts, but several nearby ones squirt out regularly. A little later there's a short look at Skalholt Cathedral. It's a modern church, but an ancient site, there's been a church on the spot for hundreds and hundreds of years. Lunch at a very expensive snack-shop takes an hour or so, and then its off to Gullfoss. This is far more impressive than expected, and it's possible to get extremely close to the roaring falls. The rest of the day will be at Thingvellir. It's a beautiful place, full of history, and a shrine to Icelanders. Most significant historical anniversaries are celebrated here, and up to half the country's population will turn up. I visited it when it was snowy, but the surroundings were still breath-taking.

Several times, I've visited Iceland on the way from New York to Europe, staying for 2 or 3 nights in Reykjavik. For a first-time visit, that's usually enough to get an idea of what Iceland and Icelanders are like.

If you're on a stopover, there will be a free busride to your hotel. Most people stay at the Hotel Loftleidur or the Hotel Esja, although you can usually choose several other hotels too. The Saga Hotel is very central and extremely nice, although the Esja is also a good place.

Reykjavik's city center is very small, and most of what there is to see is just a few minutes walk from place to place. The first spot to visit is Austurvollur Square. It's quiet, considering the national parliament and Iceland's cathedral face the square, but both are quite small. The square has a lot of character. The Hotel Borg is a beautiful building on one side of the square, and there are several cafes nearby.

Behind the square, just to the south is the Tjornin. This is a small lake, and the very modernistic Reykjavik City Hall is built right in it at its north end. A scale model of the entire country is inside the lobby. It's very interesting to see just how empty Iceland is, as well as mountainous.

Tjornin is very pretty, and along the west side of it, are some of Reykjavik's beautiful old houses, mostly built in the first part of the 1900s. On the east side of the pond is the National Gallery, and behind it are several streets with many characteristic Icelandic-style houses with painted corrugated iron exteriors.

Austurstraeti, Bankastraeti, and Laugavegur are essentially all the same street which runs east from the city center. It's the main shopping street in Reykjavik. At Bankastraeti 2 is the city tourist office in handsome old wooden buildings, with lots and lots of useful brochures.

Laugavegur is full of interesting shops. To get an idea of the scope of Icelandic culture (i.e. that a country of 270,000 people can be so prolific), take a look inside Mal og Menning bookstore at Laugavegur 18. It's stuffed with books, almost all of them in Icelandic. A little further up the street is Skifan at Laugavegur 26. This is Iceland's largest cd store. Browsing it you'll discover that Iceland has dozens of rock bands, all with CD contracts, it seems. They generally sing in Icelandic, mostly.

It won't take long to realize that Icelanders are extremely proud of their culture, especially their language. It's in no danger of dying out despite the fact that nearly everyone in Iceland speaks excellent English too. Icelandic has been around a thousand years, and hasn't changed very much. They invent new words for everything modern, and the grammar is incredibly intricate, to say the least.

Laugavegur is full of restaurants and cafes. All of them are expensive, but the service is always good (if a little slow), and the food can be really good. There are a lot of ethnic restaurants in Reykjavik nowadays, and I've had excellent Thai and Chinese food there.

A hint of the Iceland's uniqueness comes on the day-tour organized to show you a bit of the countryside around Reykjavik. It's called the Golden Circle tour, and it's touristy, even kitschy. It's not to be missed though, if only because they take you to Thingvellir. This is one of the most beautiful spots on earth, I think. It's just incredible. It's of great importance to Icelanders historically, not just scenically.

On a two- to three-day visit, one day for the Golden Circle tour, and the rest of the time in Reykjavik is time well spent.

It's a surprise to many that Reykjavik has a very lively nightlife. On Friday and Saturday nights no matter what the weather, the under-30 crowd comes out for pubcrawls along Laugavegur, getting extremely drunk and randy in the process. This is a 'tourist sight' all by itself and worth looking at if you're in Reykjavik on a weekend. No matter what the weather, thousands of people crowd the city center, socializing and picking each other up. Icelanders tend to be a little shy, but not once they've had a few beers! Fortunately they are also very peaceful, and even though the crowds are noisy and rowdy, the worst you will see are passed-out young people strewn about here and there. The ones who can still stand up will queue for late night bus service or race for taxis, since getting caught driving even a little bit tipsy in Iceland is punished with enormous fines.

Even a short visit to Reykjavik will make a convert of many people to the 'cult of Iceland-lovers'. They are people who get a little misty describing their time there, and many (of us) go back again and again. It's a unique place, uniquely beautiful, with a wonderful culture that's surviving just fine even though Icelanders are plugged-in to global influences.