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Photograph: John Myers
Directline Holidays’ family travel expert leaves the kids at home to embark on a romantic Reykjavik city break and gets lucky in his quest to see the Northern Lights, as well as enjoying daytime excursions and the best of Iceland’s capital.
In late 2012, with my wife’s landmark birthday approaching (a gentleman never reveals a number for fear of a well-aimed stiletto to the shins) the subtlest of helpful hints was offered as to a suitable celebratory treat. “It has always been my ambition,” she declared, “to see the Northern Lights.”
With my secret yearning for a short winter jaunt to the sunny Canaries brutally quashed, it was with some trepidation that I set about researching the options for tracking down the reputedly stunning and often elusive natural phenomenon, Aurora Borealis.
Let me tell you there areno shortage of options available – everywhere from Canada to Greenland to Norway to Sweden offers Northern Lights packages, many of them with eye-wateringly expensive price tags attached. In the end I settled on Iceland which seemed to offer the best combination of good value flights and accommodation coupled with the opportunity to explore one of Europe’s more remote cultural outposts – the city of Reykjavik.
So it was then, that one Thursday morning in mid-December the two of us packed a case full of thermals, deposited the children with their grandmother and set off via Gatwick for a 4-day, 3-night trip to the frozen north.
Getting to Iceland
Undertaking our first childless flight for 11 years, it took a little time for the realisation to dawn that there would be no Nintendo DS squabbles, no toilet attendant duties and no constant reprimands for kicking the back of the seat in front. Instead the flight time of just less than 3 hours passed in a blur of relaxation, idle chatter and heavy duty fiction.
Having by financial necessity become more acquainted with low cost air travel over the past few years, it was a delight to realise that there are still some “proper” airlines offering excellent value. Our maiden voyage with Icelandair re-introduced a long-forgotten world where economy class passengers can still enjoy complimentary drinks and snacks served by smiling hosts all enjoyed while luxuriating in more legroom than you’d find in the back of a Bentley.
The sun was just flirting with the horizon as we began our descent across the southern coast of Iceland toward Keflavik airport. These first aerial glimpses of the landscape are truly breathtaking as the eye is drawn to the massive snow-encased volcanic mountains at the island’s centre, then follows the monolithic glaciers that spread from the upper valleys toward the coastal areas where the land offers up the stark contrast of monumental black lava fields that flow all the way into the freezing sea. And this is the hospitable part of the island – in the north it’s far less welcoming.
Iceland was completely uninhabited by man until around 900 AD when a stream of Viking settlers began to arrive. Driven from their Nordic homelands by wars and land shortages, these intrepid adventurers set off in all directions to find new territories to colonise. One can only imagine how insufferable conditions must have been in their native lands to prompt those pioneer settlers to pitch up on Iceland’s rocky, frozen, treeless shores and declare: “This looks nice, let’s make this home.”
Getting to Reykjavik
We pre-booked a transfer on the very easy and efficient Flybus (£27pp round trip) which transports you in relative comfort from Keflavik International Airport to downtown Reykjavik in around 45 minutes, dropping off at most of the major hotels along the way.
Our choice for accommodation was Hotel Klettur on Mjonisholt, a pleasant 15 minute stroll along the main shopping boulevard from Reykjavik’s downtown area. The hotel is, like many similar options in the city, newly built, modern and functional, scrupulously clean, extremely warm and moderately priced. With a good buffet breakfast included, free wi-fi (essential for Facetiming with the nippers) and friendly, helpful young staff, it makes an excellent base for explorating the city, while being a few minutes’ walk from downtown means you are spared the more boisterous excesses of Reykjavik’s famed late night scene.
Isn’t Iceland really expensive?
If you know anyone who’s been to Iceland, odds are their first response when you enquired what it was like, before they described the volcanos or the geysers or the waterfalls or the trolls or the puffins or the fish was probably “Blimey – it’s expensive”. There’s no escaping it, so let’s deal with this first.
This is an expensive country to live in – it’s not just fleecing the tourists (Paris, please take note). Practically everything is imported, the cost of living is high, wages are therefore necessarily high, meaning if you buy anything that requires a person to serve it to you it’s probably going to cost you a lot more than it does at home.
A good rule of thumb is to allow around double the cost for eating and drinking out. There are two schools of thought on how to not let this spoil your holiday. School One - bring duty free alcohol with you, drink in your hotel room before going out, liberate a packed-lunch worth of bread, meat and cheese from the breakfast buffet at your hotel every morning (people really were doing this), nurse a pint for several hours, don’t go out much. School Two – if staying for 4 days, budget for 8 days spending money, enjoy yourself. I’m not saying either approach is right or wrong, but one is clearly more fun.
Out and about in Reykjavik
This is a vibrant and enjoyable city that manages to cram in a vast array of bars, eateries and shops while remaining compact enough to explore fully on foot. Colourful old buildings house restaurants serving international cuisine ranging from Thai to Italian and even the frozen north has been unable to resist the relentless march of American fast food giants such as McDonalds and Subway.
Traditional Icelandic cuisine is unsurprisingly made up largely of fish dishes with a smattering of good lamb recipes – the hardy Icelandic sheep are all descended from livestock brought over by the original Viking settlers and have a unique gamey taste that is not unlike venison.
Top tips for eating inexpensively in Reykjavik
1. Baejarins Beztu Pylsur (Tryggvagata)
Selling what are widely regarded to be the best hot dogs in the world, Baejarins Beztu Pylsur is a simple hot dog stall in the centre of Reykjavik which has been running since 1937 and is now a national institution. Open from 10.00am to 3.00am, there seems to be a permanent queue to sample these delicious wares. Visitors from all over the world come here (there are photos of Bill Clinton tucking into one) and at just 320 kronas (about £1.80) a pop you can afford to keep coming back (as we did).
2. Saegreifinn – The Sea Baron (Geirsgata)
Down by the harbour in a brightly painted old fisherman’s hut you’ll find the Saegreifinn (Sea Baron). Don’t be put off by its shabby unassuming exterior, for a real treat awaits inside. With two long tables made from polished driftwood and seating no more than fifteen or so customers on plastic lobster pots with a cushion on top, this is no designer eatery.
To the uninitiated the menu may also seem a little sparse with its three options. This may as well be trimmed down to one choice as absolutely everyone comes here for what is reputed to be the best lobster soup money can buy – and at around £5 for a generous, hearty and warming bowl with bread, not only is it absolutely delicious but also exceptional value for money.
3. Icelandic Fish and Chips (Tryggvagotu)
In a higgledy-piggledy space in a corner building near the harbour resides Icelandic Fish and Chips. At first sight, the front end resembles a traditional British fish and chip shop with a long queue of eager customers at the counter. Place your order, including drinks, side dishes and salads, then find a table in the rear part of the building and your food will be brought to you. The fish is premium quality, the chips are like hand cut potato wedges, the salads are bountiful and all is served with a choice of skyronnes, the traditional Icelandic sauce that accompanies fish. We paid about £35 for 2 including a beer each and coffees afterward. Though this may sound expensive for fish and chips, by Icelandic standards this is very reasonable and the quality is excellent.
Shopping tips
This is a very short section. Goods in Reykjavik are hideously expensive. This is compensated for by the fact that most shops in the city sell a seemingly identical range of tourist targeted tat that nobody wants, making it amazingly easy to come away empty handed.
So unless you are either a benevolent millionaire with a secret passion for puffin-related merchandise (the national bird appears on every product that the human mind can conceive) or you want to get revenge on the aunt who knitted you itchy jumpers as a child (Icelandic wool products are everywhere and boast the twin virtues of being the most expensive substance known to man whilst having a texture that makes a brillo pad feel like cashmere) then you’ll probably be able to resist Reykjavik’s retail charms.
If you do succumb to temptation you’ll be pleased to know that you can at least get the 15% sales tax on any purchases over 4,000 kronas refunded either at the Tourist Information Centre in Reykjavik or at Keflavik Airport on the way home.
Excursions – Northern Lights & beyond
Northern Lights
Finally we get to the real reason for this whole journey. Our trip to see the Northern Lights was pre-booked with Reykjavik Excursions, but there are a number of other operators offering similar trips. All operators will quote the immediate disclaimer that they can’t guarantee you will see the Lights as they are a naturally occurring phenomenon – many elements need to be aligned including clear (but not too clear) skies, very cold air, the right stage in the moon’s cycle and the right amount of charged particles in the atmosphere.
If you’re unlucky and the Lights don’t appear on the night of your trip you’ll be offered the chance to go back out the following night at no extra charge. Most excursion operators will collect you from your hotel at about 8.30pm in a coach and head out of Reykjavik in whichever direction the expert Aurora spotters have suggested will afford the best opportunity to survey nature’s spectacular light show. Sometimes this can be 20 minutes’ drive, sometimes 2 hours.
Our guide was an affable Icelander who spent most of the hour-long drive to the viewing site telling us how poor the viewing conditions had been recently and how few trips had ended successfully. Tonight, he informed us, offered the best conditions in some time and while continuing to manage our expectations he did indeed suggest that we might just see those Lights.
We ended up on the south-western peninsula close to Keflavik airport shivering in a lava field. (HINT ONE: Dress very warmly. Reykjavik is cold, but being on a geothermal hotspot it is considerably warmer than the surrounding countryside. It was minus 10C on the night of our excursion and we were standing in a field for 90 minutes).
On arrival our guide was gesturing excitedly to the skies where a clear corona of eerie green light had formed magically along the perimeter of the Arctic Circle. Gradually a shimmering curtain of luminescence began to cascade by increments below the corona until around half the visible sky was touched by its light. Then it just hung there, not dancing, not showing off, simply illuminating the land below with its ever-so-subtle shape mutations.
I looked around at my wife, who, unaware of my gaze, was staring upward, a childlike smile of wonder adorning her face. It was then that I knew I’d done the right thing – there’s no way I’d have got a smile like that in Tenerife – in providing us both with a memory that we would carry with us forever.
In common with our fellow spotters we watched in silent awe for a further hour until the cold became too much to bear (HINT TWO: Bring a hip flask of vodka or similar – not only will it help to keep you warm but a nip or two also adds to the other-worldliness of the whole Northern Lights experience).
With typical Icelandic understatement our guide informed us on the return journey that we had indeed witnessed a “really good display” and as we tumbled into bed at 2.00am we did feel incredibly lucky to have been standing in that craggy lava field in freezing conditions in the middle of the night.
Golden Circle
Another enduringly popular tour is the so-called Golden Circle, which again is offered by Reykjavik Excursions and a host of other local operators. We paid around £45 each for a day long tour on a minibus carrying 11 passengers. Setting off from the hotel at 8.30am, the tour heads out of the city up into the ominous looking mountain range which dominates the skyline.
Within an amazingly short time you’ll find yourself immersed in desolate white wasteland and praying that the minibus doesn’t break down. These dangerous mountain roads would all be closed to traffic in the UK but Icelanders are brought up to drive on skating rinks and our guide manoeuvred the unfit for purpose 2 wheel drive charabanc around with the sure-footed precision of a Land Rover on rails.
First stop for the tour is Thingvellir, site of Iceland’s first parliament dating from 930AD. Don’t expect to see any buildings – the old Icelanders used the natural rock formations for shelter and seating. This remote, windblown and icy outcrop looks an unlikely choice of site for a seat of government but was selected precisely because it’s in the middle of nowhere, not controlled by one clan or another and sits roughly equidistantly between the various old tribal territories of the original settlers.
Amazingly, this hostile landscape hosted Iceland’s parliament until 1789. Next stop on the tour is Geysir, the original geyser which gives its name to all other geothermal spouting hot springs. This is indeed a spectacle to behold, so long as you remember to avoid being poached and stand upwind of the spout when it erupts.
After lunch the tour moves onto Gullfoss which translates as Golden Falls. This huge waterfall (its scale is on a par with Niagara Falls) generates a deafening sound and with large sections of the falls suspended in ice (as they were during our visit) you can really see the yellow mineral deposits carried in the water which give this place its name.
The Golden Circle tour is thoroughly recommended not just for the grandeur of the geological sites visited but also for the many insights into Icelandic history and culture offered by the tour guide throughout the day.
Otherworldly and worth it
Iceland is cold, it’s almost permanently dark in winter, it’s really expensive, there are volcanic eruptions, steam rises menacingly from the ground in random places, geysers try to cook you in boiling water, there is barely any greenery, the earth is black rock and ash, shops sell nothing but puffins and itchy wool. Yet Iceland is like nowhere else on Earth.
The land feels like it is alive, the sites are spectacular and unforgettable, the people are welcoming and blessed with a laconic, self-deprecating wit. Most of all you have to marvel at the human will and ingenuity it has taken over the centuries for Icelanders not just to survive in a place like this, but to thrive. I can’t wait to go back.