A day in Reykjavik: capital of Iceland

"Landep News"

Thursday morning, once again, we slept in. We had spent three days of our trip to Iceland, doing a lot of hiking and spending time outdoors. This day, nevertheless, the plan was to remain in the city.

After breakfast, Una took us on a city tour in Reykjavik. Onni could not join us that day as he had to be back to work in Morgunbladid –the morning paper-, one of the local newspapers in which both Una and Onni work as journalists.

We started our walk from Freyjugata the street in which their house is located. Una explained to us the meaning of Reykjavik: ‘Reykja’ means smoke, and ‘vik’ means bay, so the whole name means something like “smoky bay”, probably due to the steam of the geothermal water rising from the mountains around Reykjavik.

With 120,000 inhabitants (and 200,000 if including the metropolitan area), Reykjavik houses two thirds of the population of the country in a small peninsula in the southwest of the island. It is thought to be the first permanent settlement in the area; a small fishermen village which, during the World Wars gained importance with the presence of British and American bases.

We started by visiting a park called Hlgomskalagardurinn, named after a small music hall close to it, which was the first one in the city. There we saw different sculptures of famous Icelandic people. One of them was the poet Tomas Gudmundsson, whose most famous quote is the controversial “nature doesn’t mean anything until it has a name”. We also got a glimpse of the University of Iceland in the distance.

As we walked around the Tjörninpond, Una explained that feeding the pond’s duck was a hobby of the elderly, but that lately the seagulls were having trouble finding fish in the ocean and therefore had started to gather around this pond and take food from the ducks.

We entered the Rádhúid or city hall, checking a tri-dimensional map of Iceland in which we could see the road we had taken the past three days, the places we had visited and those we had yet to visit. There are all kinds of landscapes in Iceland: mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, fiords, geysers, waterfalls, valleys, canyons, craters. It is Disneyland for those who love the outdoors!

Book any tour in Iceland from Reykjavik

Not far from there we visited Menntaskolinn Reykjavik (M.R), which is one of the best reputed high schools in Reykjavik. In the past, it was also the first seat of the parliament of Iceland in Reykjavik when reestablished. It is for this reason that, during the summer, it holds a temporary exhibition showing how the parliament functioned in the building and explaining the history of Icelandic Independence.

In short, after a couple of centuries of independence, Iceland became a colony of Norway in 1262. Later on, when Norway became a colony of Denmark, Iceland did as well, only regaining its sovereignty in 1918 and its full independence in 1944. The man leading this process was Jon Sigurdsson, about whom the exhibition also informed us.

We continued our walk in the city center, where we visited a couple of houses selling handcrafts and Icelandic designer clothing. We stopped in the Austurvollur or “the eastern plain”, where the current seat of the government is located. A lot of the stories Una would tell us referred to the recent crisis two to three years ago, in which most of the Icelandic Banks went bankrupt. In the square in front of the government, she explained, people had gathered to protest back in the winter of 2009.

One of the most beautiful areas in the city center is “rock village” or Grjotathorpid. There you can find the typical colorful Scandinavian houses, which in Iceland all have gardens and are carefully taken care of. The area is very small, just a couple of blocks in total, but it is also very beautiful.

On the harbor, which is just a short stroll from Grjotathorpid, you can take a boat to go whale watching for a fee of around 50 euros. Nevertheless, if you really want to see the big Nordic whales, it is better for you to try your luck in the north of the island. From Reykjavik you can still see them, but you may also not. Close to the harbor, we took a coffee break in Café Haiti, a cozy café in which I had a very good hot chocolate with cream.

Later in the afternoon, we took a stroll on Laugavegur, the main shopping street. There are many local shops selling clothing, some of the main Icelandic brands selling woolen and outdoors clothing, and many, many souvenir shops. We also went to one of the supermarkets to buy some local goods. Typical products would be salmon, lamb, and a special liquorish candy covered in chocolate, with variations offered with banana, strawberries and caramel.

That night we had dinner in Vegamot or “crossroads”, a very cool restaurant offering all kinds of food and catering mainly to young people.

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