The scene: Reykjavík, Iceland, early August. You’ve only ever been to Iceland in wintertime, so this whole “sun being visible for more than 4 hours a day” is going to take some getting used to.
Today’s adventure included an afternoon walking around Reykjavík with Ívar Pétur, the drummer from FM Belfast*. He is pretty much rock royalty around here; OK, maybe not Björk-level fame but you don’t see Björk giving walking tours so Ívar wins in my book!
He took the two of us to his favorite spots off the beaten path including a terminally hip record shop, a hostel/bar/performance space beloved by locals and tourists alike, an upstart bakery that is challenging the local bakery mafia, a pizza joint where the cocktails run ~$22 but are totally worth it, and a sweet Icelandic design shop where they handed us cans of beer and sent us around the corner to a small music festival that happened to be running this weekend.
Plus local history, politics, and all sorts of fun conversation, beneath clear blue skies on one of the few sunny days Reykjavík has seen all summer. So much fun!
VERDICT: 11/10 The best way to explore Reykjavík (or indeed any city) is with a local. Even better when it’s Ívar!
UPDATE: Not sure if Ívar still offers walking tours but you can find him here: On Tour With Ívar.
*FM Belfast played THE.BEST.CONCERT I saw at at Iceland Airwaves 2015. Find their music and play it loud — you’ll thank me!
Ívar and me at the music festival. I’m not a beer girl but you’ll note I have two cans in hand here. As the old saying goes, “When in Rome…” So when in Iceland and an Icelandic rock star hands you two beers, you take them and you drink them. Non-beer girl is happy to report that beer tastes better when consumed outdoors in the sun in Iceland at a music festival with a local rock god.
At Lucky Records, where we met Ívar for our tour. I don’t know if Icelanders’ love for Patrick Swayze and George Michael rises to the level of Germans’ love for David Hasselhof, but I really want to find out.
At KEX hostel / bar / performance space. “Kex” is the Icelandic word for biscuit, apparently. Turns out N knows the brewmaster who makes the beer they have on tap at KEX–they met in Nepal over a decade ago, rafting down the Karnali River. Back to the coolness of KEX. It’s one of the concert venues during Iceland Airwaves, which is how I first encountered it in 2015. (Best-run music festival in the world, I firmly believe.) In addition to hosting musical performances, KEX serves a mean fish soup!
Outside Brauð & Co, the bakery whose cinnamon rolls haunt my dreams. (Cinnamon rolls not pictured because we inhaled them, and also because I am the World’s Worst Food Blogger.)
Ívar pointed out Björk’s house while we were out and about in Reykjavik, and he advised us to keep our eyes out for her because, as he said with the certainty of someone on the inside of Iceland’s music scene in which everyone knows everyone and everybody keeps non-creepy track of one another’s general whereabouts, “I think she’s home.” Alas, we did not see the queen of Icelandic music during our afternoon with Ívar, but we stopped for a cocktail that included Björk, a liquor made from the branches of birch trees. So we got a little Björk on this tour after all!
The cocktails here were pricey but super tasty. The drink titles alone would have been worth the price of admission, especially the “Careless Whisper,” which provides compelling evidence of Icelanders’ deep and abiding love for George Michael.
Fun fact: This used to be a subterranean public bathroom. (It has been cleaned as part of the transformation to the Arcade and Toy Museum.)
Hornið is the first restaurant in Reykjavík to serve pizza; it opened in 1979. Icelandic pizza is younger than me!
Innipúnkin festival DJ tent, festooned with tree branches because summer? Doesn’t matter, the music was great!
Cute cookies & coffee joint we passed along the way. I like that sign!
Behind that gray graffitied wall topped with barbed wire? A teeny tiny jail, still in use.
