After a night flight from Montreal the plane approached the Keflavik Airport. Watching the southwest coast of Iceland from above was a beautiful site. A mix of colours jump out and smoke rises from thermal fields giving the sense that I arrived at a place very different from anywhere else I had been.
Despite getting a bit delayed at the airport when my backpack was sent to the “odd sized” area of the baggage claim. I came out to a sunny day and caught the bus for my 30-minute ride to the capital. The airport is designed for a quick release into the country with very little fanfare and an efficient but polite immigration service.
Having booked on Reykjavik Excursions bus service, I got a ride to the City Hostel. About three kilometres from the downtown area the hostel was not the most convenient but was friendly and accommodating. I chose it as it had a good rating on hostels.com but also because I was looking to save some money on the trip. The accommodation prices in Iceland seemed quite a bit higher than I would typically pay. The campground filled with tents outside the City Hostel seemed to reflect a penny pinching approach to seeing Iceland was not uncommon.
Exploring Reykjavik was a fairly easy process. The majority of the capitals main tourist sites all spread out from a central road called Laugavegur which appears to have become a tourist focussed street with countless stores, restaurants, and coffee shops over a ten or twelve block stretch. Laugavegur sits down the hill from the key focal site of Hallgrimskirkja, an imposing Lutheran cathedral with a 73-metre steeple with an observation deck popular with tourists. Although I chose not to go up the tower I enjoyed sitting in the church for a Sunday service and hearing the choirs and organ filling the airy interior (the service was in Icelandic although tourists are given a guide to help follow the progress).
In the two days I had in the capital before heading to the highlands I had to organize my time as I couldn’t take in everything in the time I had. After walking by a unique looking building on my way between the Hostel and downtown I stopped in to check it out. It ended up being one of three sites for the Reykjavik Art Gallery–this one was called Asmundarsafn. It was named after one of Iceland’s most famous sculpture artists, Asmundur Sveinnson. The small museum was the artists home and workshop before his death. He donated the space and surrounding sculpture garden to the City.
You could purchase a 1600 ISK ticket that was good at the three Reykjavik Art Museum sites including the Asmundursafn, Hafnarhus–a six gallery site near the harbour downtown, and Kjarvallstador–a traditional art gallery with one area dedicated to the art of Johannes S. Kjarval. Walking between the sites was a good way to see the city and to take in a few different generations of Icelandic art.
A few other places I would recommend checking out are the National Museum of Iceland for the dose of history of the Island nation; the Reykjavik City Hall for a bit of modern facts about the city and country; Volcano House, a small volcanoexhibit next to a fun little fish and chip shop, which gives you an interesting geological introduction to the island; and , the Harpa concert hall (a picture from foursquare is below).
BorealHiker 