Central Reykjavík

North of Geirsgata, the busy main road which runs parallel to the shoreline, Reykjavík harbour is built around reclaimed land – the beach where vessels once landed their foreign goods is now well inland from here. Street names around here, such as Ægisgata (ocean street) and Öldugata (wave street), reflect the importance of the sea to the city, and a stroll along the dockside demonstrates Iceland’s dependence on the Atlantic, with fishing trawlers being checked over and prepared for their next battle against the waves, and plastic crates of ice-packed cod awaiting transportation to village stores around the country. Keep an eye out, too, for the black whaling vessels, each with a red “H” painted on its funnel (hvalur is Icelandic for “whale”), which are moored here. Paradoxically, the harbour is also the departure point for whale-watching tours.

Housed in a former fish warehouse on the western edge of the harbour, the excellent Saga Museum is Iceland’s answer to Madame Tussaud’s. The expertly crafted wax models of characters from the sagas and their reconstructed farms and homes are used to superbly enliven medieval Icelandic life, often a confusing period in the country’s history, and although the entrance fee is steep in comparison to Reykjavík’s other museums, it’s worth splashing out to get a genuine sense of what life must have been like here centuries ago. All the big names are here: Snorri, who even rocks back and forth as he ponders; Eirík the Red; and Leifur Eiríksson and his sister Freyðis, the latter portrayed slicing off her breast as a solitary stand against the natives of Vínland who, after killing one of her compatriots, turned on her – according to the sagas, however, on seeing Freyðis brandish a sword against her breasts, they immediately took flight. An informative audioguide (included in the admission fee) explains a little about each of the characters on display – and the smells of the period which have been synthetically reproduced inside, too.

From the harbour, Pósthússtræti leads south past the bars and restaurants of Tryggvagata, Hafnarstræti and Austurstræti to Vonarstræti and Tjörnin, invariably translated into English as “the lake” or “the pond”. Tjörn and its genitive form of tjarnar are actually old Viking words, still used in northern English dialects as “tarn” to denote a mountain lake. Originally formed by a lagoon inside the reef that once occupied the spot where Hafnarstræti now runs, this sizeable body of water, roughly a couple of square kilometres in size, is populated by forty to fifty varieties of birds – including the notorious arctic tern, known for its dive-bombing attacks on passers-by, and found at the lake’s quieter southern end. The precise numbers of the lake’s bird population are charted on noticeboards stationed at several points along the bank.

Þjóðminjasafn, the National Museum, offers a comprehensive historical overview of the country’s past from the days of the Settlement right up to the birth of the Republic in 1944 and beyond. Having seen the exhibits, it’s worth having a quick look at the changing displays of contemporary photography, which are displayed within an undistinguished room known rather pompously as the National Gallery of Photography; it’s behind the museum shop on the ground floor.

The first floor

The first floor, devoted to the period from 800 to 1600, is by far the most engaging part of the museum; the video presentation within the “Origin of Icelanders” exhibition, devoted to the early Viking period and the use of DNA testing, is particularly good. Recent genetic research has shown that whereas around eighty percent of today’s Icelanders are of Nordic origin, sixty-two percent of the early Viking-era women originated from the British Isles; the conclusion, therefore, is that the first settlers sailed from Scandinavia to Iceland via the British Isles where they took wives. Informative displays show how DNA testing of the pulp cavity of the teeth of these first settlers is being carried out in an attempt to add scientific credence to the recent genetic research results.

Other prime exhibits include a small human figure, about the size of a thumb and made of bronze, which is thought to be over a thousand years old and portray either the Norse god Þór or Christ. More spectacular is the carved church door from Valþjófsstaður in Fljótsdalur (Þórsmörk), dating from around 1200, and depicting the medieval tale Le Chevalier au Lion: it features an ancient warrior on horseback slugging it out with an unruly dragon. The Danish authorities finally gave up the treasure in 1930 and returned the door to Iceland, together with a host of medieval manuscripts. Check out, too, the impressive Romanesque-style carved Madonna dating from around 1200, which hails from northern Iceland and is displayed within the “Medieval church” section.

The second floor

The second floor of the museum, devoted to the period from 1600 onwards, canters through key events in Icelandic history such as the Trade Monopoly (1602–1787) and the Birth of the Republic. It terminates in a revolving airport-style conveyor belt laden with twentieth-century appliances and knick-knacks, featuring everything from a Björk LP to a milking machine.

From Lækjartorg, turn right into the short Bankastræti and on, up the small hill, into Laugavegur (hot spring road), the route once taken by local washerwomen to the springs in Laugardalur. This is Iceland’s major commercial artery, holding the main shops and a fair sprinkling of cafés, bars and restaurants. Not surprisingly therefore, on Friday and Saturday evenings in summer it’s bumper to bumper with cars, horns blaring and with well-oiled revellers hanging out of the windows. However, before you give yourself over to extensive retail therapy, there are a couple of more cerebral attractions worthy of your time and attention in this part of town.

The grand former National Library, now the Þjóðmenningarhúsið (Culture House) has the country’s largest and best exhibition of medieval manuscripts. What makes this display of treasures particularly engaging is its accessibility; gone is the tedious intellectual pontificating which so often accompanies Icelandic history, instead you can get close up to these documents and see for yourself what all the fuss is about – an erudite account beside each manuscript serving as an adequate summary.

The ground floor

The ground floor’s warren of darkened exhibition halls, illuminated only for a few minutes at a time by soft overhead lighting, contains about a dozen ornately decorated documents, themselves in glass cases, including the magnificent Flateyjarbók, which was finally returned to Iceland in 1971 after spending three centuries in Denmark. The largest of all medieval Icelandic vellums preserved today, the book was written towards the end of the fourteenth century and recounts mostly sagas of kings. However, it is also the only document to contain the Saga of the Greenlanders, which relates Leifur Eiríksson’s exploration in Vínland. Look out, too, for the Staðarhólsbók Grágásar, one of the earliest existing manuscripts, dating from around 1270, which runs through laws from the period of the Icelandic Commonwealth, several of which are still in force today; and for the two grubby pages full of grease stains and dirty finger marks of Kálfalækjarbók, which contains fragments of Njáls Saga, one of the most widely read of all the sagas and preserved in more than fifty different manuscripts; this version dates from the mid-fourteenth century.

The first floor

It’s worth devoting a few minutes to the Jón Sigurðsson room on the first floor (entered through the door marked Fundarstofur), dedicated to the independence leader Jón Sigurðsson, though you probably have to be a national to appreciate fully some of the finer details of his bitter struggle with the Danes; a glass cabinet contains some of his personal effects. In Iceland at least, the oil painting on the wall here depicting Jón bravely standing up in the presence of the Danish king and other top officials, putting his nation’s case for independence, is much talked about and revered.

The second floor

The second floor (and the staircase leading up to it) is given over to changing displays of twentieth-century paintings and other artwork. The pieces are all owned by the National Gallery, where exhibition space is severely limited.

From the lower end of Laugavegur, the tongue-twisting Skólavörðustígur streaks steeply upwards to the largest church in the country, the magnificent Hallgrímskirkja. This is a modern concrete structure, whose neatly composed space-shuttle-like form dominates the Reykjavík skyline. Work began on the church – named after the renowned seventeenth-century religious poet Hallgrímur Pétursson – immediately after World War II, but was only finally completed a few years ago, the slow progress due to the task being carried out by a family firm comprising one man and his son. The work of state architect Guðjón Samúelsson, the church’s unusual design – not least its 73m phallic steeple – has divided the city over the years, although locals have grown to accept rather than love it since its consecration in 1986. Most people rave about the organ inside, the only decoration in an otherwise completely bare Gothic-style shell; measuring a whopping 15m in height and possessing over five thousand pipes, it really has to be heard to be believed. The cost of installing it called for a major fundraising effort, with people across the country sponsoring a pipe – if you fancy putting money towards one yourself, for which you’ll receive a certificate, ask the staff in their office on the right as you enter the church. The tower has a viewing platform, accessed by a lift from just within the main door, giving stunning panoramic views across Reykjavík; it’s open to the elements, so bring a warm hat and scarf if you come up here in winter. Incidentally, don’t expect the clock at the top of the tower to tell the correct time – the wind up there is so strong that it frequently blows the hands off course. In fact, it’s rare for any two public clocks in Reykjavík to tell the same time due to the differing wind conditions throughout the city.

The heroic form of the Leifur Eiríksson statue is found in several other statues around the city, many of them the work of Einar Jónsson (1874–1954), who is remembered more officially by the pebbledash building to the right of Hallgrímskirkja at the corner of Eiríksgata and Njarðargata, home to the Einar Jónsson museum. Einar was Iceland’s foremost modern sculptor, and this cube-like structure was built by him between 1916 and 1923; he lived here in the upstairs apartment with his Danish wife, Anna. He worked here in an increasingly reclusive manner until his death in 1954, when the building was given over to displaying more than a hundred of his works, many based on religious themes and Icelandic folklore. A specially constructed group of rooms, connected by slim corridors and a spiral staircase, takes the visitor through a chronological survey of Einar’s career – and it’s pretty deep stuff. Einar claimed that his self-imposed isolation and total devotion to his work enabled him to achieve mystical states of creativity, and looking at the pieces exhibited here, many of them heavy with religious allegory and all dripping with spiritual energy, it’s a claim that doesn’t seem far-fetched; look out for his Vókumaðurinn (The Guardian) from 1902, a ghost keeping watch over a graveyard to make sure the dead receive a decent burial. If the museum is closed, peek into the garden at the rear, where several examples of Einar’s work are displayed alfresco; his most visible work, the statue of independence leader Jón Sigurðsson, stands in front of the Alþingishúsið in Austurvöllur square.

If sculpture is your thing, you’ll want to check out the domed Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum, part of the Reykjavík Art Museum, a ten-minute dog-leg walk from Höfði; first head east along Sæbraut, then south into Kringlumýrarbraut and east again into Sigtún where you’ll see the peculiar white igloo shape beyond the trees on your right-hand side. Ásmundur Sveinsson (1893–1982) was one of the pioneers of Icelandic sculpture, and his powerful, often provocative, work was inspired by his country’s nature and literature. During the 1920s he studied in both Stockholm and Paris, returning to Iceland to develop his unique sculptural cubism, a style infused with Icelandic myth and legend, which you can view here at his former home that he designed and built with his own hands in 1942–50; he lived where the museum shop and reception are currently located.

The museum is an uncommon shape for Reykjavík because when Ásmundur planned it, he was experimenting with Mediterranean and North African themes, drawing particular inspiration from the domed houses common to Greece. The crescent-shaped building beyond reception contains examples of the sculptor’s work, including several busts from his period of Greek influence, but the original of his most famous sculpture from 1926, Sæmundur á selnum (Sæmundur on the Seal), is not on display here but, appropriately, stands outside the main university building on Suðurgata. It shows one of the first Icelanders to receive a university education, the priest and historian Sæmundur Sigfússon (1056–1133), astride a seal, psalter in hand. A smaller version of the original now stands in the museum grounds, where you’ll also find many of Ásmundur’s other soft-edged, gently curved monuments to the ordinary working people of the country.

The Landnámssýningin (Settlement Exhibition), whose centrepiece is the extensive ruins of a Viking-age farmhouse, is one of Iceland’s most remarkable museums. Housed in a purpose-built hall directly beneath Aðalstræti, the structure’s oval-shaped stone walls, excavated in 2001, enclose a sizeable living space of 85 square metres with a central hearth as the focal point. Dating the farmhouse has been relatively straightforward, since the layer of volcanic ash which fell across Iceland following a powerful eruption in around 871 AD lies just beneath the building; it’s estimated, therefore, that people lived here between 930 and 1000. As you wander around the exhibition, look out for the animal spine, probably that of a horse or cow, buried under part of the farmhouse’s western wall as a talisman to ward off evil spirits, a common practice during the Viking period. The exhibition’s wall space is given over to panoramic views of forest and scrubland to help give a realistic impression of what Reykjavík would have looked like at the time of the Settlement. Indeed, when the first settlers arrived in the area, the hills were covered in birch woods. However, just one hundred years later, the birch had all but disappeared, felled to make way for grazing land or burnt for charcoal needed for iron-smelting. Well-conceived computer graphics cleverly overlay the wallprints and show ghost-like characters going about their daily chores. Ongoing excavation work outside the museum at the corner of Kirkjustræti and Tjarnargata has unearthed traces of eight iron-smelting furnaces and a charcoal pit, also from the 870s, where bog iron was used to produce various goods.