Reykjavík - Tuesday 1st - Sunday 6th August
It was a great flight across the uninhabitable centre of Iceland flying over mountains, lava fields and glaciers. As I was on a internal Islandic flight I arrived at the domestic airport which is about a mile from the city centre so I was able to walk into town. The International airport at Keflavík is about 50 miles away, so most tourists arriving in Iceland have to gert a shuttle bus. I had time to settle in and do a food shop and get maps etc. I have a small room with a hob and a fridge.
As I approached the town the spire of Hallgrímskirkju dominated the landscape. Outside is a statue of Leifr Eiricsson, who discovered Vinland, the area around Newfoundland, in 930 AD.
A walk around Reykjavík
Reykjavík, the world's most northerly capital city, is situated on the South West coast between Reykjavik bay and the mountains. Reykjavík means smoking or smoky (reykja) and bay (vík) and was so named by Ingólfur Arnarson, the first official settler in 874 AD who mistook steam escaping from the underground geothermal springs as smoke.
Once again on my first day the weather was fabulous so I made the most of it. I walked around the bay passing Sólfar (Sun Voyager) Jón Gunnar Árnason's sculpture of a stainless steel Viking boat. I also visited the fabulous new Harpa Tónlistar (concert hall) overlooking the harbour. The coloured glass facade represents the surrounding landscape and hexagonal basalt columns.
Since she started to learn Icelandic folk songs Lucy has been studying all forms of Islandic music, so when she saw that a concert was about to start she rushed off to buy a ticket.
It was a thirty minute trumpet demonstration of Icelandic music performed from different areas of the concert hall to show how good the acoustics are. She assured me that they were fantastic and you can see from the photo how engrossed she was while listening to the music.
Harbour and Coastguard Service
This year marks the 100 anniversary of Reykjavík harbour. Before it was constructed the bay was open and unprotected from the elements and the strong sea currents. There was just a sandy beach with limited facilities for ships to dock.
Iceland is a member of NATO but doesn't have any armed forces apart from the coastguard service which protects the coast and fishing grounds. The police are also unarmed.
Whale Watching
While I was in Reykjavík I did several trips into the countryside but will include these in the Sourh Iceland blog which I will post after this one. It was a fabulous evening so on impulse I booked the three-hour late evening whale watching trip. Luckily I had booked the tour run by environmentalists and they didn't get too close to the whales or disturb them. They also asked the participants not to eat whale meat, which is on the menu in many restaurants. Iceland reintroduced commercial whale hunting in 2006. It is sold as a traditional Icelandic dish, but in fact only about 1% of Icelanders will eat it and it is hunted for consumption by tourists and also exported to Japan.
We sailed out to sea for about an hour, then they cut the engines back and went slowly around in circles looking for wildlife. We saw puffins, dolphins, gannets and minke whales. We were about to turn back when they got very excited because they had been told that there were humpback whales nearby. So we headed further out to find them. This extended our trip by about an hour so it was getting on for midnight when we got back to the harbour. A brilliant end to my first day in the Smoky Bay.
Volcanos, Geothermal Springs and Hot Water
(This is not one of my photos) The line where two tectonic plates, the North American and the Eurasian, meet runs diagonally across Iceland. They are drifting apart at a rate of approximately 2.5 cms per year. This is the cause of daily earthquakes and frequent volcanic eruptions, although most of these are underground or well away from the inhabited areas. It also means that the landscape frequently changes and Iceland is still growing. In terms of geological history it is one of the youngest countries in the world. I could write at length about this and the major volcanic eruptions, but will leave you to look it up.
A product of this activity are the geothermal springs which provide hot water for Reykjavík and the surrounding area. The water is piped into the city from the geothermal plant shown above, and is also used to heat swimming pools & greenhouses enabling them to grow all their vegetables, and piped under roads in winter to keep them ice free. It takes a while to get used to the strong rotten egg smell of sulphur when you have a shower or wash up. 70% of Iceland's energy comes from geothermal sources and the rest from hydropower.
Tourism
Reykjavík is swarming with tourists and this year they are expecting almost 2 million visitors, three times the population. The current tourist boom started after the volcanic eruption in 2010. The ash stopped air traffic around the world for about a week and people watching the coverage on TV saw Iceland as a place to visit. It came at the right time for the country and helped them to recover from the 2008 economic crash. Tourism is now one of Iceland's biggest sources of income. I hope for their sake that the 'bubble' doesn't burst as in the city they have cleared huge areas to build more hotels etc.
Icelandic Literature
As well as Icelandic music Lucy has been reading Icelandic literature. Iceland has strong literary tradition dating back to the 1100s and the early history of the country is recorded in the Icelandic Sagas. Many Icelanders were able to read and write and their early literature was written in Icelandic and not in Latin, which was unusual at that time. Stories about the Norwegian Vikings (The Viking Sagas) were also written in Icelandic leading to the misconception that Icelanders were Vikings. Although they came from Norway, they were in fact settlers and the early history of Iceland is always referred to as the Settlement.
Lucy has also been reading Icelandic myths and legends and has befriended some trolls. Several Icelanders, young and old, have told me that most of them believe in the existence of spirits and the 'hidden people'. The stories of Trolls are told to children to scare them so that they won't wander off into the the wilderness. Also at Christmas it is told that Santa's parents are trolls who turn children into mountains. So if children misbehave instead of getting presents Santa takes them to meet the trolls.
Museums and Galleries
I visited the National museum and art gallery and the Culture House. Again it was interesting to see how Icelandic art developed in isolation, the main influence was from Danish artists. At the gallery I focused on women artists and the above was painted by Kristin Jónsdóttir, the first Icelandic woman to graduate (1916) from the Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. She returned to Iceland in 1924 and travelled around the country painting. At that time there were no roads in Iceland. She had solo exhibitions and was the first woman artist to have work purchased by the National Gallery of Iceland. The Culture House has a wonderful reference library and a fine collection of early books, manuscripts, photographs and religious art. I particularly liked this drawing of Þuríður Einarsdóttir dressed as a man. She was one of the few women ever to captain a fishing boat.
Lucy was very excited as she is now on record in the archives as a user of the reference library in the Culture House and her name is filed away in a large bureau. On reflection she should have written her name as Lucy Annsdóttir. Icelanders do not have family names and the women add 'dóttir' and the men 'son' to their parent's (usually the father's) first name.
Frídagur Verslunarmanna
(Retail Worker's Holiday)
There was a public holiday while I was in Reykjavík. It was originally introduced so that traders and retail workers could have a day off during the Summer.
I had wondered why Lucy had packed her guitar, but this is the weekend when Icelanders pack up and travel out into the countryside and to music festivals. The biggest festival is held in the Vestmanna Islands. the site of a huge volcanic eruption in 1973. The eruption was unexpected and started in January. Luckily the entire fishing fleet was in the harbour and they were able to evacuate most of the inhabitants. It lasted for 5 months when the islanders returned to rebuild their communities. One of the islands, Stursey, was formed after huge underwater eruptions and earthquakes in 1963. Young people head off to these islands with sleeping bags and guitars and spend three days partying. Someone told me that most Icelanders go at least once in their lifetime. She said it was really good and her daughter was born nine months later.
The above was Lucy's favourite picture in the Culture Museum. Another favourite of hers was Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir's multicoloured synthetic hair installation in the National Gallery. This blog has been about life and culture in Reykjavík and the next one will be about Lucy's adventures in the countryside.
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