Fröken Reykjavík

2022 has been an eventful year for my Bucket List. Travel-wise, we’ve been to Paris, Dorset, and New York, but there was time for one last trip of the year to Iceland! This wasn’t a holiday, nor was it a City Break in my eyes, it was simply an adventure.

Every Vlogger, Blogger, and Travel show host rants and raves about Iceland, due to its amazing natural wonders like the Northern Lights and the countless beautiful waterfalls and glaciers, but also because of its little surprises. Squeezing everything into five days would be an impossible task but we certainly gave it our best shot. We did so much, I’ll have to do multiple blogs to do it justice. So, in this one, we’ll focus on Reykjavik.

Some quick little tip bits for you

· Two flights from the UK, a tiny car and a windowless hotel room set us back around £650 (this was the cheapest combination of all three).

· Iceland is booming expensive, so budget the above again per person if you plan on eating out.

· Reykjavik is quite small and can be explored in about a day or two

· The food can be amazing and… not so amazing.

Reykjavik is a lovely place to get some steps in and look around. The obvious place to start is Hallgrímskirkja (the big church in the middle). There’s a pay and display car park behind it for easy access. Not only can you get some cool pictures as we did, but you can also pay to go right to the top for some city line views of Reykjavik. We gave this a miss as there were other things, we wanted to spend our budget on, but from other people’s accounts, this is a nice little way to see the city all at once.

Just in front of Hallgrímskirkja, you will find Café Loki. Café Loki is quite popular amongst tourists, and you’ll see it make an appearance on a lot of travel vloggers' top spots for Icelandic eats. We wanted to see what the fuss was about so ordered their Icelandic plate Baldur. Which was two rye bread slices, one with mashed fish & the other with egg & herring. As well as Loki’s unique Rye bread ice cream. The Ice Cream was awesome. You may think bread and ice cream isn’t a good combination and, in the UK, you’d be right, but Iceland’s got the combo spot on. The fish, on the other hand, was an acquired taste. I’d recommend you try it, but if you’re not big on fish, then perhaps look at the rest of their menu.

Whilst in Café Loki we noticed they served something that was on my Bucket List to try. Hákarl.

Wikepdia:

Hákarl is a national dish of Iceland consisting of a Greenland shark or other sleeper shark that has been cured with a particular fermentation process and hung to dry for four to five months. It has a strong ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste.

It honestly, smelt like a full cat litter tray that had been left unattended for several weeks. But, in true Bucket List fashion… I ordered some. Eating it was quite easy but smelling it and the proceeding two hours of digesting was not great. It’s something I’d recommend you try once with your friends for a laugh, but it’s never going to be a popular side dish.

Next up, a few minutes of walking around Reykjavik will lead you to Rainbow road. I’m told it does move around every now and then, but we managed to find it a few minutes away from Café Loki. It represents the support Iceland has for the LGBTQ+ community. Whatever your thoughts are on that, it’s a cool street with some great shops and picture opportunities. Some of those shops include the Christmas store (this has a letter box to Santa at the entrance where he replies to you later!) and quite a few lovely bakeries. Those helped us get over the Hákarl from earlier.

Towards the harbor, you will find four things that you do not want to miss. First up is the Icelandic Opera House, Harpan. Whilst there’s not a lot to do inside, it’s a good-looking building, both during the day and at night, and worth a quick mooch around.

Slightly down the road, you will find the second thing. The Icelandic Philological Museum. That’s right, it’s a museum about dicks. Everything that could be shaped like a Penis, is. That includes the cafe's beer taps, the waffles, and even the toilet door… knobs. There is an entry fee of around £17, but for that, you get to see a lot of art pieces and specimens from around the animal kingdom, including the biggest (sperm whale) and even a human example! And yes, there is a gift shop.

Just outside the museum and a little bit down the road, you’ll come across the most famous hot dog place in Iceland ‘Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur’. Even former US president Clinton has popped over for a dog. Smothered in sauce and multiple types of onions, the hot dog stand is the go-to for tourists and the residents of Iceland for a quick bite of lunch. The buns were light a fluffy, and the dogs themselves were juicy and meaty – everything you’d want from a Hot Dog. Regarding quick bites to eat, another place that became close to our hearts was Reykjavik Chips. It’s a burger and chip place in the middle of the city, but their chips are extra delicious. I don’t quite know why. It was as if they’d been double and triple fried and there are many sauce options that just make it that extra special. If you need a quick dinner at a fraction of the price of a full-on restaurant meal – seek them out.

If that doesn’t fill you up enough, then the one restaurant I would recommend above all else is called Sægreifinn. It’s located on the harbor a few minutes from the Opera House and when open, will always have a queue of people out the front. Their special dish, lobster soup, brings people from far and wide and excites every one of your taste buds the second it contacts them. Not only that you can also try other things like a Wolf Fish skewer and if available Whale steak. Two soups, bread, two drinks, and one skewer set us back £50, but it was worth every penny. The queue was constantly moving but never seemed to get shorter. Always remember though, where there’s a line… the food is fine!

The thing is that’s not even all the stuff we did! Honorable mentions must go to The Recycled House, the Whales of Iceland museum, The Kitty Café, the Fly Over, the Sun Voyager sculpture, and just the general street art around the city. There’s so much to experience out there and we haven’t even got to all the amazing things you can see outside of the capital.

I can’t stress this enough. Go to Iceland someday.