Day one: Following in the footsteps of Professor Otto Lidenbrock, Arne Saknussemm and Aron Gunnarsson, we are travelling to Iceland. Armed with long-johns, bobble hats and thermal gloves.
Drawing Iceland away in the Nations League was an interesting prospect. The ‘Land of Ice and Fire’. Volcanoes. Geysers. And £20 a pint! But the prospect of seeing the Nothern Lights, Whales and Wales playing football on the same trip, made it a no-brainer.
The run up to the trip featured visits to outdoor shops to buy warm clothing, Googling potential trips, watching tutorials on how to photograph the Northern Lights and several sharp intakes of breath looking at the prices. A taxi from the airport is £150. Each way. We booked a bus.
The flight from Heathrow was incredibly pleasant. Unlike budget airlines, Iceland Air allow for plenty of leg room, have in-flight entertainment screens on the headrests in front of you, and the cabin crew seem chilled and relaxed. No rushing up and down the aisles trying to sell you duty free perfume.
There were a lot of Americans on the plane, but we discover later that Iceland appears to be a stop-over point between Europe and Canada/USA.
Iceland, incidentally, is to the west of the British Isles, making it the first time I have ever been anywhere where we are actually one hour behind UK Time. (I know, I need to get out more.)
The in-flight magazine had an advert for Iceland Coupons and a code for discounted restaurants and such.
On arrival at Kefavik airport, the passport checking dude was incredibly pleasant and friendly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one smile and joke before. A good sign as to the nature of Icelandic people? There was quite a long walk through to the baggage collection, through the usual duty free shops, but it wasn’t long before we were putting our bags onto a ‘Fly Bus’ coach.
‘Fly Bus’ are not cheap, £27 per person each way, but they appear to run 24 hours a day (we are coming back early in morning) and the cheapest taxi we could find was £150 each way.
The landscape is quite bleak. With numerous volcanic eruptions over the years, much of the land is the dark grey colour of volcanic ash. Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is a boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The plates are constantly moving, resulting in eruptions of magma from below. It must be true, I’ve seen it on YouTube.
It also means it is the best way of accessing tunnels to the centre of the earth.
“Go down into the crater of Snaefells Jökull, which Scartaris’s shadow caresses just before the calends of July, O daring traveler, and you’ll make it to the center of the earth. I’ve done so”. Arne Saknussemm
Disappointingly, unlike Arne Saknussemm, we don’t spot any dinosaurs on our journey to the centre of Reykjavik.
The journey takes around forty-five minutes. You get dropped off at a bus station. If you have paid a small extra fee, you walk through the bus terminal to find a load of colour-coded shuttle buses that will take you closer to your hotel.
As we are AirBnB-ing it, it obviously doesn’t drop of everywhere, but it was only a five minute walk to our base for the next week.
We are staying in a slightly dated but perfectly comfortable little apartment with a warm, comfortable bed, a fridge, microwave & small hob. All we need really.
We ask the host about groceries and she tells us of a corner shop a few hundred yards away. There is another one near by that is better stocked but, even by Icelandic standards, it is considered expensive. After dumping our bags, we head to the cheap one. We buy bread, milk, eggs and a few other basics, and it rocks in at £54. I’m glad we didn’t go to the expensive one.
On the short walk back we are overcome with thirst and are drawn to a nice little pub called Local 101. According to the sign, Happy Hour only lasts another twenty minutes, so it would have been rude to not go in. It was smart, the staff were friendly and the local beer, ‘Borg’ was quite pleasant and had a bit of a kick to it. By the time we bought our second drink, Happy Hour was over. In fairness to the barmaid, she made a point of telling us this.
I think the locals know how ridiculously expensive the pubs are and each pub has a Happy Hour every day. Some of them have two Happy Hours a day. You can keep track of which pubs are having Happy Hour and when, through an app, called Appy Hour. You’re not considered to be some sort of skinflint if you only drink in Happy Hour, it is considered normal.
Beer was illegal in Iceland from 1915 right up to the end of prohibition as recently as 1989. So you won’t find any ancient pubs, or indeed any breweries that have been around for hundreds of years. As a result, all the local beers are making it up as they go along, with no traditional recipe to stick to. The prices and sizes vary, coming in 0.33l, 0.4l and in one instance 0.75l (0.5l being roughly 1 pint and 200kr being approximately £1 ). It’s early days yet, but we get the vibe that the average price is around £8 for half a pint, but £6 for half a pint during ‘Happy Hour’. But as I say, this varies quite dramatically, depending on which beer you opt for.
Oh, and as is the way with many European countries, table service and pay when you finish drinking is the norm.
Whilst in the pub we overhear that the Northern Lights are forecast to be very visible tonight. Which is frustrating as we are booked on a trip tomorrow, when they are forecast to be less show offy.
After dropping off our weekly shop, we head out in search of food. Almost immediately we stumble upon Vegan World Peace. No, not literally, that would be too much to ask, it’s the name of a cracking little Vegan Asian restaurant.
Here’s a tip for you if you visit. Don’t order rice to go with your main meal. Your rice is your main meal. Whilst it’s your usual Icelandic prices, the portion size is humongous. And the Pineapple Rice comes in an actual Pineapple.
Once we had gorged ourselves on vegan delights, we took the short walk to the harbour front and went off in search of the Sun Voyager, a steel artwork that represents a viking ship and sits overlooking the harbour. It was a bit of a long shot. To get the best views of the Nothern Lights you need to be away from the light pollution of the city, but I have seen decent photographs of the lights with the Voyager in the foreground. When we get there, there’s a big crowd of people with cameras on tripods. I’ve actually got my tripod with me tonight, I’m up for a bit of long exposure photography, but I can’t see anything in the sky but stars. We sit for a while to see if the lights come out to play, but nothing.
After a little while, it gets cold. We had been expecting cold, it’s called Iceland for a reason. But during the day I was quite pleasant. Fresh even. Chilly but not teeth chattering cold. When the sun goes down though, it’s a different story. Cold enough to freeze the walls off a brass Monastery. If you are reading this and have tickets for the game on Friday, it’s going to be positively artic on those terraces. Forget your bucket hats, get your Spirt of 58 bobble hats on. (Tim’s not paying me for this you know.)
We head towards the famous pointy church thing but accidentally fall into a warm pub. A Brewdog pub no less. Happy Hour here is 10pm till midnight.
We have another Borg, as we know it does the job, then head back to our AirIgloo. En-route, we pass a record shop that doubles up as a live music venue, pub and coffee shop (should that be quadruples up?). There’s an interesting band playing but we are in need of sleep so head back to our warm duvets. But I make a mental to check out Smekkleysa later in the trip.
And that’s it, our first evening done. Watch this space for a report on tomorrow’s city walking tour and our trip out with a professional Aurora hunter. And perhaps tales of local food.