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| Reykjavik, Iceland. Bravo bar in a quintessential Reykjavik corrugated-iron-clad building. |
My
friend Caroline Hatton, a children’s book writer and frequent contributor to this
blog, loved strolling through Reykjavik in June 2023 and taking all but one
photo in this post. This is Part 1. Part 2 will appear next week.
When the Covid
pandemic hit in 2020, the week-long horse trek I had previously booked in
Iceland got canceled. But after a few years staying safe at home, and getting
vaccinated and boosted against Covid and its variants, I booked it again, this
time for June 2023.
Riding a horse
safely requires my sharpest focus and reflexes, so I planned to arrive in
Iceland a few days early to get over jet lag. Buffer days would also reduce the
impact of potential flight delays or cancellations, or lost luggage, which had
been a higher risk in the past two years (but didn’t happen to me).
Where would I
spend the extra days? At the horse farm, perhaps the only guest in an isolated,
rural location, enjoying a personal retreat, reading about Iceland, and hoping
for photo opps with horses? Or in Reykjavík, which I had skipped on two
previous visits to Iceland, hungry as always for time in the wild? I can read
about Iceland at home, so I chose to explore Reykjavik. I stayed near the far end
of Lauvavegur, the main shopping street downtown. From there, I walked in a few
minutes to the seashore and in less than half an hour to everything else I saw.
Here are some outdoor highlights.
THE SUN VOYAGER
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| The Sun Voyager sculpture by Jon Gunnar Arnason. |
The art work I
ranked as most inspired was the Sun Voyager, or Sólfar in Icelandic.
It’s a large steel sculpture by the late Jón Gunnar Árnason, an Icelandic
mechanical engineer who pursued art in his spare time. The Sun Voyager
symbolizes the promise of undiscovered territory, a dream of hope, progress,
and freedom. As it stood outdoors on the seashore, its slender arcs reaching for
the sky gave it an exuberant lightness, unusual for a Nordic creation.
When I took the
above photo, I framed it to exclude a stranger on the right side, but this
truncated the shiny disk under the sculpture—oops—and removed a convenient
indication of scale—oops again! The disk reflects the changing sky, including
dramatic colors, clouds, or northern lights, as shown by postcards in every
shop. After glancing to the right, at Mount Esja across the bay, I turned left
to follow the waterfront walking path to the Harpa Concert Hall, 600 m (~1/3
mile) west.
THE HARPA CONCERT
HALL AND CONFERENCE CENTER
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| Harpa Concert Hall |
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| The glass walls mirror nature's moods. |
Shiny! The Harpa Concert Hall is a glass building that lets
light through and reflects it, mirroring nature’s moods, and it is a winner of
the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award.
Harpa was designed by Henning Larsen Architects and its facade by
Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, inspired by Iceland’s volcanic crystallized
basalt. Harpa is the home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, The Icelandic
Opera, and the Reykjavik Big Band.
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| Harpa wall from inside. |
I loved hunting
for photos inside and outside, zooming in on the repeating glass blocks or the
occasional panes of different colors which made walls and ceilings shimmer like
gemstones.
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| Himinglaeva sculpture by Elin Hansdottir. |
Outside Harpa, the
stainless-steel-coil sculpture by Elín Hansdóttir, named Himinglæva after a Norse mythic figure,
is an Aeolian harp: it produces sounds when wind blows through it, which wasn’t
the case when I saw it.
HALLGRÍMSKIRKJA
Hallgrímskirkja is the largest church in
Iceland, a tall reference point visible from all around town.
In some online
photos, it looked like a solid concrete bulk. But up close, the minimalistic
design and slim columns reminiscent of volcanic basalt, separated by slivers of
transparent glass, felt airy and elegant. The interior felt serene because it was
free of adornments.
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| Looking down from the Hallgrimskirkja church tower: Across the street, Einar Jonsson Sculpture Museum and Garden. Beyond, row of concrete homes painted green, blue, yellow, beige, gray, pink, red...mauve! Beyond, Tjornin Lake and the ocean. |
As for the view
from the tower, having seen Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower as a toddler,
then London, Taipei, Ulaanbaatar, and Seattle from up high, I had decided to
skip seeing smaller Reykjavík from above. But when nature mirrored my mood, and
the overcast sky turned clear blue and the sun warmed the day (after the weeks
of cloudiness and frigid rain I had monitored before traveling), I changed
my mind because it felt like an exceptional opportunity. I rode the elevator and
climbed the few steps up to the observation deck. My experience was worth every
Icelandic króna I paid.
The 360-degree view
unexpectedly popped with the happy colors of roofs and buildings. I spotted the
Reykjavik Airport where I once took a flight to Greenland, the oldest part of
Reykjavik, new condo high-rises on the waterfront, the Harpa Concert Hall,
ocean, mountains, and more.
A sign had warned me
that the bells, hanging just above the observation deck, chime every fifteen
minutes. I should have set an alarm to cover my ears just before, instead of
just after the ringing stabbed my ear drums and rattled my rib cage.
From the
observation deck, I saw the Einar Jonsson Sculpture Museum garden across the
street, where I walked next.
Next week at The Intrepid Tourist: Part 2 of Walking Around Reykjavik, Iceland.
All text and photos, copyright
Caroline Arnold. www.theintrepidtourist.blogspot.com
