Exploring Reykjavik, Iceland

04 Aug Exploring Reykjavik, Iceland

I must begin this post by apologizing to our regular readers. We’ve been really quiet (on the blog) and we haven’t been able to keep up with the one-blog-post-per-week frequency that we set for ourselves.

But if I told you that we’d been to twelve cities in six countries this month alone, would you forgive me? Hope so #TrueStory

And some of you may have noticed that our website has a new look? Well, that’s a work in progress too, and we hope to “unveil” it and shout about it a bit more once it’s complete – so please no judgement just yet!

Now back to the topic of this post…

Although we spent a magical four and a half weeks in beautiful Iceland, we only managed to spend four and a half magical days in Reykjavik.

Known for being the most northern capital in the world, Reykjavik was a pleasant surprise for us. If you’ve seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (one of the best movies ever made – I think we’ve said this before, so if you still haven’t seen it, rent it NOW) you’ll remember the scene in Greenland when Walter asks the car rental agent for a car, and he offers him a choice of two – the blue car or the red car.

Well, even though that scene was shot in Greenland, for some reason we had a very similar vision of Iceland, and arriving in Reykjavik at 2am was really a lot different to Ben Stiller’s awkwardly hilarious Greenlandic car rental experience.

The city isn’t too big – 274.5km squared with just under 120 000 inhabitants – but it’s developed enough to leave an impression as a modern city on the rise. We particularly loved the Skólavörðustígur street (try say that with a mouth full of Lakris), filled with cute designer stores (which of course have no use to us, but we still love window shopping through aesthetically pleasing areas) and a specialised photography store with vintage cameras and gorgeous once-off prints hanging from the ceiling. The street leads up to the famous Hallgrímskirkja made-to-look-like-lava-flows church, and very close by is the Harpa, Reykjavik’s creative hub and opera house. We filmed some of our favourite spots and you can see the video collection here.

If you’re passing through the city en route to an outdoor adventure like we did (and most people coming to the chilly island), then make sure to sample the fish and chips at the Volcano House restaurant – probably the tastiest fish and chips we’ve ever had- and if you’re really into chips (like we clearly are) Reykjavik Chips in Vitastígur street offer a super cool range of sauces, including the Satay Vegan sauce (and the business was started by a couple of 20-year-olds, so we’re always keen to support young entrepreneurs).

If you haven’t subscribed to our new vlog yet, then you would’ve missed us arriving in Iceland >> check out the vid below (and if you’d like to subscribe, to see more of our behind-the-scenes, click here).

Thank you Reykjavik. We are seeing you later this month (even if only for a little while).

CC

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You can also find us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Facet, Twitter and Snapchat, or search for #HowFarFromHome.