Reykjavik; Monday, 03 April, 2006

Keflavik airport is stuck out on a peninsular at the end of Iceland, 45 minutes coach ride from Reykjavik. Thankfully, the FlyBus meets each flight and takes you into the Bus terminal in the city centre. From there free transfers took us onto our hotel where we checked in, dropped off all our stuff and headed straight back out again.

Iceland is a very unstable country, not democratically (it has the worlds oldest parliament after all), just geologically. Each year the island has over 300,000 earthquakes. Consequently, there are very few tall buildings in the city. So with those facts what do we do… Head for the tallest church in the city and get the lift to the top of its tower.

From the top of the Hallgrimskirkja the views over the city and the surrounding land are spectacular. There are mountains surrounding on most side, and where there are not mountains there are fjords. We could have spent longer up there, but the viewing platform is also the bell tower and you are standing right underneath bells that can be heard across most of Reykjavik, so we beat a hasty retreat as 12:45 rang out (strangely the tower is closed 11:30-12:30!)

After stopping to grab some sandwiches from a local supermarket, we started walking down the hill into the centre of town, accompanied by a small blizzard! By the time we reached the city centre we resembled snowmen and were a little chilly, so we headed into the first museum we could find, the Culture house. The museum has displays of the original copies of the Icelandic Sagas, as well as a small display of items from the national museum.

With the weather still not improving, we caught the bus back to the hotel for a short while to warm up and dry out. About an hour later, the sky had cleared so we wandered the short distance from the hotel to the Perlan. Originally, the storage tanks for the city’s geothermal hot water they have now been converted into a restaurant and museum to the Icelandic Sagas. The museum uses wax works and an audio guide to tell you the history of the beginnings of Iceland from its settlement in the 10th century through its full conversion to Christianity (it happened one afternoon following a debate in the parliament) though to the beginning of its subjugation under the other various Scandinavian powers.

The museum is inside the Perlan, but you can also go up to the roof of the building to take in the views over the city. After spending some time here we wandered back to the hotel to drop stuff off, before heading back into town for a very pleasant (if horrendously expensive) dinner.