It had been a foolproof plan.
To transplant my Paris-based family for a summer on the Chesapeake Bay, where I grew up, we would meet my mother “halfway” in Iceland and enjoy the famous stopover that Icelandair has marketed brilliantly over the past few years.
We’d then continue the voyage with a doting grandmother to help entertain a (possibly) unruly toddler. An added bonus: The gradual adjustment to a new time zone, since Iceland is two hours behind France, making for an easier arrival on the East Coast.
But then I trawled a trio of weather websites that all predicted constant downpours and temperatures hovering around 50 degrees in July. Despite all the admonitions to pack light, bags would be stretched to the seams with rain gear, hats, maybe even winter coats. I went on the site for the Blue Lagoon – the geothermal spa pool that’s the country’s most famous attraction – and found that reservations were booked solid for our arrival time. Had Iceland become a victim of its own tourism success?
But the 3.5-hour flight from Paris to Iceland – an island nation with excellent infrastructure and a population of just 323,000 – was blissfully calm. We stepped off the plane at 9 a.m. into an airport that’s a showcase for sleek Nordic design, where Mom was waiting.
From bust to boom
When Iceland’s economy crashed in 2008, and the krona took a nosedive against the U.S. dollar, an infamously expensive destination was suddenly put into reach for the average traveler.
During the past seven years, Iceland has successfully transformed an economic downturn into a tourism boom with a savvy marketing campaign depicting the cinematic landscapes – volcanoes, northern lights, glaciers and waterfalls – that make Iceland a paradise of natural phenomena.
Icelandair advertises competitive airfares between the United States and Europe, with a multi-day stopover included at no additional cost. With expanded flight routes serving destinations across North America, Icelandair continues to offer competitive prices (the Icelandair flights I purchased from Paris to Washington were the cheapest I could find). Plus, the new Iceland-based Wow Air is upping the ante with $99 fares. Today, you won’t find the bargain hotel and food prices that were the norm after the financial crisis, but Iceland continues to reign at the top of travelers’ bucket lists.
Art, natural beauty, food
Iceland’s appeal is multifaceted: There’s a rocking nightlife, a dynamic arts and music scene, sigh-inducing natural beauty and even the cuisine is making a name for itself. For us, it was perfect for family travel, providing excitement and fun for three generations.
Beyond all this, it was the Icelanders who won us over. I knew I’d fall for a country where a Pirate Party politician rapped a song in Parliament and where the descendants of fierce Vikings vocalize their beliefs in elves and trolls.
Quirky Icelandic wit threads through all aspects of culture; we were amused to learn about a new tourist offering, a guided tour called “Bankers Behind Bars,” which traces the causes and consequences of the banking system’s 2008 collapse. (Yes, several officials actually went to jail.) Magnus Sveinn Helgason, who leads the walks, was quoted as saying: “What could be more exciting than the story of how a tiny country was turned into a giant hedge fund, only to blow up?”
Staying in the city center
An apartment rental with Reykjavik4You was the most cost-effective way to sleep a family of four in the city center. Just a few steps away from a grocery store, our two-bedroom apartment came with a fully equipped kitchen, a parking space and thoughtful amenities like a Nokia cellphone for free calls. The apartment’s extra space also allowed us to adjust to the different jet lag circumstances; Mom needed to sleep later while the girls would be up at 4 a.m. Luckily, the flat-screen TV came with a DVD player and a stack of American DVDs.
From here, we could stroll through Old Town to Hallgrimskirkja, the landmark concrete church, or to the waterfront to try the famous hot dogs, smothered in fried onions, at Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. Reykjavik can be equated to a midsize American town, so it wasn’t hard to find the Sundhollin public pool, designed in art deco style.
My girls love nothing more than swimming, and Iceland is chock-full of swimming pools, many filled with geothermally heated water. But leave your modesty behind! In Iceland, it’s mandatory to strip naked and shower before taking a dip. We forgot to bring towels, and there were none available to rent. Who knew paper towels and blow dryers could provide such amusement to a 2- and a 5-year-old?
Whales and sagas
As the rain poured down, we were the first visitors to Whales of Iceland when it opened in the morning. Launched in late February of this year, the privately owned museum is a vast warehouse space exhibiting replicas of all the different species. Face to face with a leviathan, hanging in the blue-tinged light, the girls shrieked with delight.
“We want to give visitors a feeling of wonder, bestowing a personal connection to whales and perhaps inspiring a desire to preserve whales in their natural environment,” says Parker O’Halloran, an American expat who works as a shift manager.
At Landnamssyningin (the Settlement Exhibition) – built around the ruins of an original Viking longhouse – Mom and I gleaned insights into the 874 A.D. settlement, while the girls colored at a designated children’s table.
We learned about the country’s rich literary tradition – peering at centuries-old manuscripts detailing the “sagas” – and also about the Viking greed for timber. (Iceland’s treeless landscape is not entirely attributable to natural causes, and today there is a big problem with erosion caused by deforestation.)
On the road
Sagas could also be written about the glories of the Icelandic road trip.
There aren’t any traffic jams or navigational hazards in this underpopulated island nation; our borrowed road map was of such poor quality, we relied on our natural navigational compass instead. Sooner or later we had found the Ishestar Riding Center, outside Reykjavik, where Jane could ride a stocky Icelandic horse.
And with a rental car, we could explore at our own pace. The most popular day trip is the Golden Circle route, which encompasses three sites: geysers in the geothermal valley of Haukadalur, the Gullfoss waterfall and Thingvellir National Park.
Why push the “must-sees” and risk the possible meltdown after the 2-year-old’s skipped nap? Instead, we chose one site and lingered. Thingvellir is a UNESCO World Heritage site of captivating beauty. It’s here where two tectonic plates converge. The resulting rift valley – dotted with waterfalls and craggy cliffs – is where the Vikings, in 930 A.D., held their first general assembly, the world’s first democratically elected government body.
As we strolled the trails, I kept the girls on their best behavior by warning of hungry trolls lurking off the path. Across Iceland, bizarre rock formations are said to be trolls frozen into stone when they ventured into daylight.
A hidden world
Iceland is rife with turbulent natural wonders: brooding volcanoes, exploding geysers, shifting glaciers, celestial lights dancing across the firmament. Faced with this – not to mention extreme weather patterns – is it any wonder that so many Icelanders believe in Huldufolk, or hidden people, like elves and trolls? Who can blame them for diverting road construction projects out of “elf habitat”?
The documentary film “Investigation Into the Invisible World,” presented at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, interviews former Icelandic president Vigdis Finnbogadottir: “No one has proven the existence” of invisible beings, she said, “but no one has proven the existence of God, either.”
Geologically, Iceland is the youngest country on Earth, still in the process of creation. Here, we could witness the dramatic topography that’s fueled so many dreamers and artists. As the girls slept in the back seat of the car, we circled Thingvellir’s lake, the largest in Iceland. There was no one on the road, and we noticed a few solitary fishermen knee-deep in the water. We marveled at the vast, treeless expanse over which volcanic mountains loomed. Steam rose from the moss-covered earth, and we passed a number of geothermal power plants, such as Nesjavellir. Surrounding it: a moonscape straight out of Tolkien’s fantasy world.
On the Net
For more about Iceland, visit www.visitreykjavik.is.
