Iceland - Reykjavik's Rainbow Roads

June 19-20, 28-29

I’ve taken you around the island of Iceland. But what of its capital city?

One of the city's icons is its yellow box lighthouse

The rainbow road leading up to the big church

Reykjavik is where most Icelanders live. That’s not a generalisation: over two-thirds of its population reside in the capital area. 

The vast majority don't live in houses like this

I'd also imagine most don't each fish and chips
as much as I did during my time here

It is a compact place, however, and easily walkable. This is a pleasant enough thing to do in the sunshine and mild June temperatures (it reached 14’C when I was there at the end of the month). I imagine it is less pleasant on a windy winter’s day, when the Sun may not rise until close to midday.

Tjornin is the pretty lake which is
one of downtown's centrepieces

This is Tjornin on a sunnier day

To give you an idea of the long summer
days, I took this picture shortly before 4am

Quite a few people walk, particularly downtown. A sizeable number will use a different method of transport: an electric scooter. You can often find these unattended on pavements or in parks around the city. They’re available through an app and it doesn’t seem as though people think they’ll get stolen anytime soon.

No, not this...

...this. Most of the scooters are yellow. 

The city - and country - feels incredibly safe, which is recognised by the fact that Iceland is

regularly voted as the safest country in the world. The picture below shows the office of the

country’s prime minister. It is on a main road and next to a bus stop. Can you imagine being

able to get that close to the White House?

This is Iceland's parliament building. Seriously.

Could easily knock on the door and chat to the PM!

Considering how young the actual land of Iceland is, Reykjavik has a lot of history. Legend

has it that one of the first settlers threw large pieces of timber off his boat when approaching

the island, deciding to build a home wherever they landed. I’m sure you can guess where…

I got the idea of ancient Egypt from this art.
We're not talking that old...

These supposed timber logs could have landed here 

Recent construction work has unearthed some rather old buildings in the city. The

Settlement Exhibition is based around a recently-discovered Viking hall or longhouse

which dates from the 10th century.

The hall is in the basement of the exhibition
(Lonely Planet picture, mine was blurry)

This map shows the most recently discovered islands:
among them New Zealand, Madagascar and Iceland

A lot of the history is connected to the sea, which is demonstrated in many of Iceland’s

numerous museums. The Maritime Museum focuses on important events, such as the

shipwreck of the Milkmaid in 1659, and the cultural importance of the sea. The board

game shown below is one of many examples of this.

The shipwreck has been investigated since the mid-1990s

Icelandic sea monopoly, maybe? 

The National Museum of Iceland also talks extensively about the importance of the sea

whilst charting the story from first settlement to independence, via being ruled by Norwegian

and Danish kingdoms.

Paraphernalia from Iceland's first day as a
republic: June 17th, 1944

Weapons from the Viking era of settlement

Walking around the coast itself is a pleasure, though looking back at the city’s skyline

doesn’t give you the prettiest view.

The Sun Voyager landmark on the northern shore

The futuristic building is the new concert hall, which
apparently cost five times its budget

That skyline is often dominated by the Hallgrímskirkja, an enormous church on top of a hill.

The building is modelled off a combination of the Chrysler Building, the Empire State

Building...and Iceland’s hexagonal basalt columns.

It took 40 years to finish the construction

It is almost 75 metres tall

The cool picture you can get of this church is from the bottom of the hill in downtown. The

road is painted as a rainbow. This was originally done as a temporary celebration for gay

pride; it proved so popular that the city made it permanent.

There's also an epic hopscotch street

Residents , even the mayor, helped to paint the road

Reykjavik is quite a colourful city. Other streets have different designs and some of the walls

have been ornately graffitied. This apparently was because people were vandalising the

walls. ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ was the pervasive attitude, with positive and creative

results. Many of the buildings also have a varied palette. I’d imagine the colour raises spirits

on those long, dark winter days.

Houses aren't allowed to be built of wood now, after a
fire in the past. This is one of the few that survived.

Icelandic mountains showing ther strength

All that learning and walking is thirsty work. Alcohol is prohibitively expensive here unless

you know a couple of tricks. One is the Vinbudin - the government liquor shop.

Supermarkets (such as Bonus, which is represented by a pig) aren’t allowed to sell it so

most will go to these places to stock up. There’s only one downtown. 

I did actually see one Iceland supermarket in Iceland!

These places often keep short hours
so you have to plan your visit

The shop is on an old street full of bars. Almost every bar has a ‘happy hour’, in which

drinks become more affordable. A beer drops from £8 to about £5 for example. There’s a

clever app which tells you which places are currently having their happy hour time.

The American Bar is where I watched Euro matches,
which were often on during happy hours

There are plenty of reasons to come back to Reykjavik and Iceland. One would be to see

those cute animals I didn’t see this time; another would be to experience winter here. This

is the time when you can see the famous ‘northern lights’, when the skies above the country

illuminate with a show of spectacular solar energy. Being summer, I had to content myself

with the Aurora Reykjavik, a multimedia experience in the capital.

The experience shows many examples of
the northern lights around the country

This shows the zone in which you're likely to see the
aurora borealis - Iceland is very much in the zone

A cool (if expensive) place to spend time, the world’s most northerly capital city has a lot

going for it. The alternative to being here was eleven days in a UK hotel under government

surveillance. I’m so happy that things worked out to allow me to visit and enjoy Iceland

instead.

Virtual reality allows you to 'see' the northern lights

Liquorice is surprisingly popular here -
the grey is salted liquorice ice-cream

Love you all, 

Matt

Iceland - Mount Doom

 June 26-27

Hello everyone!

A few days before I set off for Iceland, I had an email from my tour group to say that they were changing our itinerary. They were doing this so that we could go to see the erupting volcano.

An erupting Icelandic volcano

This was how close we got

This was a surprise to me. To my knowledge, it hadn’t made the news in Malawi. Added to that...go to see an erupting volcano? Don’t people normally evacuate when a volcano erupts?

Iceland averages a volcanic eruption every 4 years

A panorama of the cooled lava river

Not for this one, clearly. It has been going on for a while. Geldingadalir or Fagradalsfjall (whichever you pick, it’s slightly easier to say than the name of 2010’s eruptor of Eyjafjallajökull) started booming on March 19th of this year. We were told that it’s a relatively stable and benign eruption, therefore people can confidently get quite close to it. 

This volcano had been dormant for approximately 800 years

I think the word relatively is important here. It’s still spewing magma into the air and, as you’ll see from the pictures in this post, has changed the landscape with its lava flow. What it is not doing, however, is putting any nearby villages in immediate danger.

Lava exposed to cool air turns black as it slows

This person clearly wasn't worried

They are lucky that this eruption isn’t reminiscent of Eyjafjallajökull. That eruption in 2010 released huge plumes of ash into the sky which drifted across continental Europe, causing significant flight disruption for more than a week. This eruption, on the Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest, is occurring in quite close proximity to Iceland’s only major international airport. You can see the white smoke on the drive from Keflavik to the capital Reykjavik.

It was about an hour's trip from the capital

View of the eruption on the airport shuttle bus

This makes it a popular attraction, for locals as much as foreigners. Not every day there’s a ‘safe’ volcanic eruption happening an hour from your house, after all. The volume of cars seen as we approached the impromptu car park made me consider what travelling in all of Iceland must have been like during its tourism boom in the decade before Covid-19 hit. I’m much happier to be here now!

In 2019, Iceland received about 3 million tourists...

...which is close to 10 times the country's population!

To see the fire and fury, you hike up a nearby mountain. This was steep and quite challenging in the wind; there were multiple occasions where we had to pause and simply brace until the gale eased. 

Steep and slippery - at least it was a nice day!

Going up on horseback would be ambitious

All the while you are peering over to your left. Looking down gives you a terrific view of the still-smouldering lava river which has ended its journey from the crater. Looking in the distance shows you flickers of blood orange popping up and down in that very crater.

Scientists from the Iceland Met Office estimate that the volcano has
ejected 80 million cubic metres of lava. That sounds like a lot!

Lava flow from the crater or vents is about 13 cubic metres per second

Obviously the higher up you get, the better your view. The crater has caved in a bit on one side, allowing you to see a bit more activity in the crater. 

The gap you see allows better views inside the crater

The magma would occasionally seem to jump
up, though never particularly high

I wasn’t nearly as close as I got in Ethiopia, when I was pretty much able to lean over the edge of Erta Ale. With flecks of fire being flung into the air from Geldingadalir, and seeing lava flowing quickly out of the crater, I imagine this was a good thing.

Lava was flowing out of the crater

As close as I'll get!

On our way back we took a closer look at the solidified lava river that we had seen from above during our hike. Still smouldering in parts, I was taken aback by how tall it is. Generally it was at least one metre high, more than enough to cause serious damage.

The end of a lava river

This post shows the height of the river

This journey made me think a bit of Lord of the Rings. Didn’t have a ring to throw into the crater, admittedly, but the hike and surrounding scenery can easily transport you to Isengard or Mordor. 

Eye of Sauron probably lurking somewhere

Two hobbits on an adventure!

Other areas of the country have a Lord of the Rings effect as well, but evoking images more like those found on the Shire. Many examples can be found on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, to the north of Reykjavik. This got shifted in our itinerary so that we went after our volcano adventure.

Kirkjufell mountain and its nearby waterfall: photogenic 

Apparently the peninsula is the windiest inhabited
place on Earth between March and October!

Gatklettur Arch, possibly my favourite spot on this day

There isn’t too much to say about Snaefellsnes other than it is quite remote (we had to tactically plan toilet stops), windy and absolutely gorgeous if the Sun plays ball.

These stones used to be used to show what jobs men could do.
The 'lightest' is 23 kg and roughly translates as being for 'weaklings'.
The biggest is 154 kg. Some people still try today...

Legend says this waterfall had a sheep's carcass behind it.
Selvallafoss is therefore known as 'Sheep's Waterfall'.

Churches used to be open until a Dutch group of tourists
started boasting that they would sleep overnight in them to save money
when travelling around the country. They're now locked.

These two days showcased the beauty and volatility of this island. I’m very glad that my route was altered to take in the raw power of an erupting volcano, as well as the quiet beauty of Snaefellsnes.

Love you all,

Matt