Reykjavik, Iceland – The World’s Northernmost City

Reykjavik, Iceland…The world’s northernmost city and another unplanned stop along my trek through Europe but so far, if you were to ask me today what my favorite country has been, it would be Iceland and you’ll soon see why!

My first glimpse of Iceland from the plane. You know you're excited when you're taking photos from the plane.... But wait, where's the Ice?

When most people think of Iceland they obviously conjure up a certain mental picture of the place and never think of it as a travel destination but I’m not alone when I say its been my favorite country to travel to. It’s a place I had always wanted to visit but it always seemed too distant. However, after realizing it was only a short flight from Germany, I decided to go to the northernmost city and see what it and the rest of the country was all about. And so far, I have not regretted that decision. (Luckily no volcanoes erupted while I was there).

You know your guesthouse is going to be great when they have this kind of letter at the front door waiting on you...

You know its going to be even better when you see this on the wall when you get inside.... Don't worry, I was only a 'post it note-stick man' for an hour or so...

Reykjavik is technically Iceland’s only city, and because of that, it is the northernmost city in the world (though there are large towns even farther north) and of the 313,000 people that live in Iceland, about 60% of the population actually live in Reykjavik. However, there are many others towns throughout the country which I visited while here and soon I’ll be posting more about them.

Reykjavik's Hallgrímskirkja Church located in the center of the town. I was staying about a block from it.

The first immigrants to Iceland date back to the 9th century and the story you probably heard about Greenland vs. Iceland getting their names may be true though there are a few different versions of the story that I’ve heard. It has been said that the first settlers tried to discourage others from inhabiting the land and since they knew about Greenland, they named the two opposites of each other. The second story states that a Norwegian Viking named it ‘Island’ (Iceland) after seeing distant glacial ice on top of the mountains. Not sure which to believe but the first seems to be the most accepted version.

The actual city of Reykjavik got its name from its Viking settlers which means ‘smoky bay ‘ stemming from the geothermal hot springs in the area that give off steam. And the weather in Reykjavik is actually not as cold as you would think as it gets more rain than it does snow.

Port off the coast of Reykjavik

Well??

Oh and yes, to this day the name ‘Thor’ is still very popular among men. In fact, I actually passed the ‘Thor Restaurant and Bar’ though I didn’t get a picture. It was the only thing I’ve regretted so far on my trip! Either way, my newborn’s middle name will definitely be Thor (mainly because I’ve realized Jack Bauer may be a bit overboard). Umm, maybe Bear Grylls Thor Cummins would be best?? Ahh, yeah so anyway, back to Iceland…. When I first arrived at my guesthouse, I met a few Canadian girls that were ending their travels in Iceland while I was just starting mine. I was planning on meeting a friend the following day and once the girls found out we were going to do a road trip around the entire country (known as the ‘Ring Road’), they decided we’d need a list of challenges (aka missions as they called them) to complete during the trip. I can successfully say we completed 6 of the 10 on this list and on two of them, we came damn close!

Our mission list...

And its close-up shot....

I’ll follow up on this later, for now, I had one more day to spend in and around the Reykjavik area before we headed out on the road and we were set to visit the Golden Circle in the morning…

My first night there was actually very clear and with the fall season beginning here, there was  a good chance I would be able to see the Northern Lights. It was something I’d always wanted to see but for some reason, I doubted I’d be able to see them from this part of Iceland. However, I lucked out on my first night in this northern most city and was actually fortunate enough to see them from the rooftop terrace at my guesthouse. The show lasted about 30 minutes and once they started, you’d notice the streaks change very quickly in the sky. It’s nothing like watching low clouds drift along in the sky. These would change very rapidly. I took a lot of photos while I could and each one you can see is very different from the next.

First shot of the Northern Lights around 11:30 pm

This was taken just a few minutes later. I would imagine it would have been even more dramatic without all the light pollution from the city.

It then moved to the left of the tree right above this house...

That’s it for this first day but there’s much more to follow in the coming days….