Iceland is an enchanting, otherworldly, volcanic island nation far out in the north Atlantic. Home of Viking settlements in the 8th century and colonized by Norway and Denmark, the tiny country became an independent republic 70 years ago and has a population of only 320,000. It is arguably the most peaceful country in the world. It doesn鈥檛 have an army, navy or air force. Police don鈥檛 carry guns (just pepper spray), and a murder last year shocked Icelanders.
We started our recent adventure in Reykjavik, where two-thirds of the nation lives. Our centrally located flat was near Hallgrimskirkja, the city鈥檚 towering Lutheran church inspired by Iceland鈥檚 basalt lava flows. The 77-metre landmark took 38 years to complete.
We spent our first Sunday afternoon listening to a concert on the church鈥檚 25-tonne pipe organ, then wandered down Reykjavik鈥檚 compact downtown shopping streets past bustling bars, coffee shops and restaurants, and local design outlets to Baejarins Beztu鈥檚 flagship hot dog stand across from Harpa concert hall and conference centre on the waterfront.
Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra played Harpa during our visit, followed by a performance a few weeks later by the Toronto Symphony. The award-winning structure鈥檚 geometric-shaped, multi-coloured glass panels conjure-up shiny fish scales and the country鈥檚 historic fishery.
The architectural gem provided a striking backdrop for our $3.50 hotdogs. A hot dog at Baejarins Beztu is a much-loved local culinary tradition shared by visitors such as Bill Clinton, Charlie Sheen and Metallica鈥檚 James Hetfield. Anthony Bourdain featured the stand on his television show and The Guardian called it 鈥渢he best hot dog stand in Europe.鈥�
I don鈥檛 know about that, but it was one of the few bargains we found in Iceland, where a bowl of soup in a diner set you back $15-$20 and a restaurant meal鈥檚 main entr茅es ranged from $35-$70. CDs were $20-$40 at 12 Tonar (Gramophone Magazine calls it 鈥渢he best record shop in the world鈥�), where you can sip a complimentary espresso while listening to hundreds of Icelandic recordings from punk to classical before purchase. I loved Lucky Records, too, with its huge selection of vinyl records.
Paperback books were also expensive ($30-$40), but Reykjavik was recently chosen the world鈥檚 fifth UNESCO City of Literature after Dublin, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Iowa City.
Icelanders spend $60听million a year on books, and more amazing, one in every 200 publish a book. They published 1,500 books in Icelandic in 2012. Despite the price, I bought a stack of Icelandic CDs and a couple of English translations by crime writer Arnaldur Indridason and the modern slacker classic 101 Reykjavic.
Although I loved Icelandic design by Varma, Kron, Vik Wool, Farmers Market and Oswald Helgason, I spent most of my limited travel funds on restaurant meals, where I dined on a range of Icelandic specialties.
At the tiny Loki Caf茅 around the corner from our flat, I tried a plate of salt cod, mashed haddock and eggs, smoked trout and smoked lamb on rye, and a sampling of fermented shark, which had a sizzling uric acid after-burn that torched my nasal passages.
A yogurt-like skyr cake dessert and Loki鈥檚 birch and moss tea blend completed an interesting, surprisingly delicious meal.
Even better was our neighbourhood fish restaurant, 3 Frakkars. They served guillemot breast in a dark, rich, mushroom and wine reduction sauce. The rich seabird meat tasted like roast duck and liver and followed an equally gamey reindeer pat茅.
On one of our neighbourhood walks, we discovered Hannesarholt, the 1915-built home of poet and statesman Hannes Hafstein, now a cultural centre with a restaurant/caf茅 headed by one of Iceland鈥檚 leading chefs, Sveinn Kjartansson. In addition to writing cookbooks and hosting television cooking shows, Kjartansson heads a kitchen at Nordic House, another Reykjavik cultural institution designed by famed architect Alvar Aalto. We had a long, leisurely brunch at Hannesarholt and returned another day for the chef鈥檚 delicate seafood soup and moist and tasty chocolate cake with fresh whipped cream.
One day, we drove 40听kilometres out to the Reykjanes Peninsula鈥檚 lava fields, geysers and geothermal plants. Geothermal provides 85 per cent of Iceland鈥檚 heat and hot water and most of the island鈥檚 electricity. We walked across a short bridge between European and North American tectonic plates that are separating at the rate of one centimetre per year.
Next, we joined the international hordes at the Blue Lagoon, arguably Iceland鈥檚 most popular tourist destination. More than a million tourists a year visit Iceland, and most of them soak and frolic in the huge thermal pool. The entrance fee is steep ($60), but absolutely worth the extravagance.
Another day we packed our bags and headed north on the 1,339-kilometre Ring Road, a mostly paved, two-lane highway that circumnavigates the island. We drove out of town through a treeless landscape of hayfields, lupine and other alpine flowers, stark cliffs and snow-topped mountains populated mostly by sheep, stubby Icelandic horses, and the odd dairy herd.
These animals far outnumber people outside Reykjavik. The next-largest city is the northern port town of Akureyri (population 17,000, smaller than Oak Bay).
We drove to tiny Stykkisholmur and visited New York conceptual artist Roni Horn鈥檚 Library of Water, where floor-to-ceiling cylinders display water from all of Iceland鈥檚 glaciers. The largest glacier, Vatnaj枚kull in the southwest, takes up 17 per cent of Iceland鈥檚 land mass. While staying two nights at Stykkisheimur鈥檚 Egilsen Hotel, a comfortable, renovated 19th-century home, we took a Snaefellsnes Peninsula day trip to a black sand volcanic beach in Dritvik and hiked an hour on a windswept, muddy trail along the seabird nesting cliffs from Hellnum to Arnarstapi.
We also enjoyed fish soup and warm homemade rye bread at Tj枚ruh煤sid, a cozy little cabin/caf茅 perched precariously above the sea.
Returning to Stykkisholmur, we were treated to a concert by Icelandic folk star Lay Low for 10 guests in the tiny lobby. It was a stop on Lay Low鈥檚 intimate one-week tour of the hinterlands sponsored by a government program called Hand Picked Iceland, and it provided an insight into the nation鈥檚 support for the arts and the depth of talent in the Icelandic music scene.
Lay Low has released a handful of CDs and toured Europe and North America, including stops in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Gimli, Manitoba, sa国际传媒鈥檚 Icelandic centre.
We took a SeaTours ferry to the Westfjords the next morning, visited the spectacular Dynjandi Waterfall, and drove a single-lane, pot-holed, hardpan road in the pouring rain to the western-most point in Iceland and the L谩trabarg bird cliffs, home to the largest puffin colony in the world. When we finally arrived, the wind nearly tore the car door off its hinges and my raincoat off of me.
Needless to say, the puffins weren鈥檛 out of their cliff-side burrows and, frustrated, we drove back along that dreadful road to Petreksfj枚rd, a broken-down fishing village and our $150/night guesthouse with a shared bath and the usual Scandinavian breakfast.
We drove to Holmavik the next day and visited the town鈥檚 Witches and Sorcerers Museum before feasting on fish soup, smoked lamb and smoked puffin. I finally saw a puffin, but it was on my plate and tasted like smoked salmon.
I saw horse and whale meat on many menus and on sale, along with gull and guillemot eggs at Reykjavik鈥檚 weekend market near the harbour, but you can鈥檛 eat every Icelandic dish during a three-week visit.
Down another long, boulder-strewn, non-paved road, we spent two stormy nights at Djupavik Hotel, a renovated 1930s-era herring factory. The old, wooden dormitory was transformed into a warm and comfy hotel producing delicious lamb and cod dinners and a twice-monthly, all-day Buffet of Cakes for guests and rural neighbours. I wolfed down almost a dozen pieces of savoury, chocolate and cream-laced sweet cakes before turning in early with a giddy sugar high.
It was almost always light during our July Icelandic adventure, and when Iwoke at 2听a.m., the sky was bright and buttery above the calm sea outside my window.
The volcanic landscape around Lake Myvatn was another mind-blowing sight, with craters and boiling mud pits, smoking hills and geysers, the powerful Dettifoss waterfall and Jardbodin Nature Bath, a large hot-spring pool with lots of locals and few tourists.
We spent a day taking the Golden Circle tour out of Reykjavik, a tourist-crammed let-down after our previous weeks away from the city. Thousands packed the trail to Gullfoss鈥檚 thundering falls, Geysir and still-active Stokkur erupting every few minutes, and Pingvellir, where the Vikings established the first parliament in the 10th century.
Back in Reykjavik, we visited an insightful retrospective of 20th-century Icelandic painting at the National Art Gallery, discovered the transcendent landscape paintings of Johannes Kjarval, caught a young, jazz quintet at a packed bar called Hurra, and basked in the sonic glory of multi-award-winning vocalist Ragnheidur Gr枚ndal at a free afternoon concert on the grounds of Nordic House.
Her ethereal, horn-like phrasing hung like magic in that bewitching landscape, and like all the otherworldly landscapes I witnessed during our visit, thrilled and haunts me with its beauty. Her CD and our photos of Iceland only hint at that beauty. We鈥檒l have to go back.
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Joseph Blake is a Victoria freelance writer and former columnist for the sa国际传媒.
