Well, it seems I’m the go-to person for writing about celebrity travelogues in Iceland (see Zac Efron last summer…) so here we are again in Iceland with Alexander Armstrong. Of course, a well-spoken BBC presenter on a Channel 5 documentary isn’t going to make quite the waves throughout the internet that a Hollywood A-lister on Netflix did but still. I’m watching it and I’m talking about it. This is Iceland with Alexander Armstrong, episode 1.
First we’re at the new volcano! And in a helicopter! I’m very jealous. Very jealous. Making this sort of TV tends to be slow – it gets filmed but it doesn’t make it to air until a year or two later. But as the eruption didn’t start until March 2021, this has been filmed in the last six months and that’s an incredibly quick turnaround. July, judging by “it started erupting four months ago” and the state of the sky.
The volcano doesn’t have an official name yet but you’ll see it called both Fagradalsfjall, which is what will probably become the official name, and Geldingadalur, which is the name of the valley it used to sit in, before it filled it up with fresh lava. It’s a really good tourist eruption – it’s near enough to Reykjavik that the glow lit up the skies over the cities back when nights were still dark enough to see glows, it’s been producing pretty fire fountains and despite its proximity to the largest city in the entire country by some way, it’s actually remote enough that the only thing that might come in for some damage is the south coast road between Grindavik and Hveragerdi. And even that’s very unlikely given the number of sources in the last week or two who’ve announced that activity has ceased. I’m very jealous. For what it’s worth, this thing will still be hot to the touch for a long time and hot only an inch or two down probably for the next century. If you really want to cook a pizza or a marshmallow over it, you haven’t missed your chance yet. Also, if you like volcanologist Helga, you can follow her on Instagram here.
The Sky Lagoon next! This one’s new, I haven’t been there yet but it’s on my list of spas to visit when I finally get back there (along with Krauma and Vök Baths and the Secret Lagoon, which isn’t new but which I haven’t made it to yet). It’s just opposite Reykjavik so it’s very accessible from the city. The water is coming from Nesjavellir power station along the Golden Circle, I think. That sounds about the right distance according to Dagný. Actually, the heat is coming from the power station. It used to be geothermal water but it smelled and tasted sulphurous. These days, the geothermal hot water is used to heat pure clean spring water so your shower will smell better and so will your spa. The Sky Lagoon looks lovely and because it’s right by the sea, it seems to work as an infinity pool.
Next we’re off to the Golden Circle and off to the Geysir area. This is the highlight of the Golden Circle tour – home to an active geyser that erupts a fountain of boiling water every five or ten minutes to the soundtrack of gasps and camera clicks from an ever-present circle of tourists and I’m so glad he’s pronouncing it the Icelandic way (and without that “I think that’s how it’s pronounced?” that people always add whenever they say a non-English word). It’s an incredible spectacle. I’d cut my visit to Gullfoss short – Iceland’s got plenty of waterfalls – and double, triple, quadruple my time here. Xander talks a lot about the Great Geysir but that’s been inactive for decades. It used to erupt if you tipped a couple of kilos of soap powder in but the hotspot has moved and it no longer does that. Little sister Strokkur isn’t quite as big but it’s big enough and spectacular enough for most people’s tastes.
By the way, in case you think I’m being inconsistent with the spelling: the original word for an explosion of geothermal boiling water is Iceland and it’s geysir, meaning “gusher” and pronounced something like “gay-zeer”. The original geyser is literally named Geysir, as the smaller one is named Strokkur (the Churn). When we stole the word for English, we changed the spelling to geyser and then depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re from, it’s pronounced either “geezer” or “guy-zer”. When I refer to the specific spring, I call it by its name, Geysir. When I’m referring to springs like this in general, I use geyser. See, there’s reason behind the inconsistency.
I knew the moment I read the synopsis that the lunch of boiled eggs and bread baked in the water of a nearby lake would be at Laugarvatn. Everyone does it. Zac Efron did it – in fact, you might recognise Siggy from the Zac Efron show. I believe the Hairy Bikers have done it, although I can’t find any evidence. I haven’t done it but I have many times been to Laugarvatn Fontana, the spa that’s fed by the same natural hot spring. And it’s not in the water. The eggs get cooked in the water but the bread is cooked in the sand around the shore. You can do it if you want – Fontana offer it as an experience alongside the spa and the bread is included in the meal you get if you do the Warm Baths and Cool Lights tour with Reykjavik Excursions. Now, the bread and eggs may be cooked in the spring but you can’t tell us “this trout is from the lake” while removing it from a sealed plastic packet that clearly came from the nearest supermarket.
Icelanders must be sick to the back teeth of foreigners coming over and asking, in that tone of voice, whether they believe in elves. “Elves” is often the way we translate it into English but Iceland uses the word Huldufólk, the hidden people. For reference, the Hidden People aren’t cutesy little magical pixie types. They’re as big as humans but more elusive. The elf lady is Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir and she’s known as the Elf Whisperer of Iceland. You’ll hear the story of her rock and the road project a lot. In fact, she probably generates about 90% of the tales about Icelanders and elves. I’m not 100% sure where her Elf Garden is, given that she appears to live north of Reykjavik but it seems it might be in Hafnarfjörður, which figures because that’s the place that’s renowned for its elves. To be fair, Xander does mostly manage to avoid the tone of voice that most visitors use when talking to Icelanders about the huldufólk.
So this episode is entirely about the south-west region and we’re in Reykjavik. Excellent. Oh – we’re at what my mum calls “a certain museum”. I admit, I’ve never been to the Phallological Museum. I don’t have a lot to say about it apart from that this is at least its third home. It used to be at the other end of Laugavegur, next to Hlemmur, back when that was a transport hub rather than a food hall. Umm… yeah, I’m not the right person to talk about the Phallological Museum but I appreciate the way the Icelander is so stoic about it and Xander is clearly suppressing embarrassment.
Next up, we’re off to Seltjarnarnes to meet Hatari in a footpath. I’m a bit out of my depth in this Reykjavik segment. I don’t watch Eurovision, I don’t know Hatari and I’ve never been to Kvika, which is the name of the little round hot spring they’re sitting in. When it appeared in preview before the break, I thought for a second it was Reykholt but it’s not. It’s on the end of the peninsula, beyond the city and probably best accessed by bus for people like me who don’t rent cars in cities. You’ll see buses going to Seltjarnarnes all over the city. My thermal pools guidebook seems to suggest this one is entirely man-made – well, of course it is. Nature doesn’t create perfect round geothermal pools – as an artwork.
It’s very odd to see Xander in… well, it’s a supermarket. It’s a state-controlled restricted-hours alcohol-only supermarket. This is how alcohol works in Iceland – alcohol just isn’t available in supermarkets like it is here. Every settlement will have a vínbúðin but the opening hours get more and more restricted the further you get from Reykjavik. This one is closed on Sunday but in some places they might be open just an hour or two in the entire week. They have a similar system in most of the Nordic countries. Not Denmark, so it’s not unknown for Swedes in particular to pop across the bridge for relatively free access to relatively affordable alcohol. The vínbúðin will be expensive – Xander’s 16,000ISK comes to around £91 / $124 but that’s cheap compared to bars. Well, it’s the same here. Of course bars are more expensive than buying from the supermarket. That’s why pre-drinking exists.
I’ve not tried Brennivín either, although there’s a mini bottle of it on my bookcase. It’s a kind of schnapps made from fermented grain and flavoured with caraway. It’s quite strong, hence its English name Black Death. Next episode you’ll see Xander try hákarl – the two usually go together because you need some strong-as-hell alcohol to take away the taste. What is hákarl? Wait and see. Obviously, he doesn’t try it here – today he just has Brennivín on its own.
I’ve never been out drinking in Reykjavik and I’ve also never seen it quite so bright at 10pm. I know people talk about the Midnight Sun but it doesn’t quite happen in Iceland, which is just below the Arctic Circle. But no, it doesn’t really get dark. It gets a bit dimmer by about 1am but nothing you could call dark, even in the worst stormy weather. I don’t know where the rooftop bar but I think it’s Petersen Svitan, which is on the road that connects Laugavegur with Hverfisgata.
Aha, we’re back on my territory at last! I know Hallgrímskirkja. You can’t miss it – it’s that big church that dominates Reykjavik. It looks like a cathedral – a basalt column-influenced cathedral – but it’s actually just a parish church. Reykjavik Cathedral is a fairly unassuming church down near the vínbúðin. But because it’s the biggest church in Iceland – probably the biggest building full stop – it hosts a lot of the things that should happen in a cathedral. State occasions, that sort of thing. You can go into Hallgrímskirkja and wander around and if you hand over a few kroner, you can take the lift up to the top of the tower and enjoy the city views. No, you can’t get around the fee by taking the stairs: there aren’t any. I do recommend going up there.
And we’re back with Hatari. Again, I can’t say anything helpful other than that Xander leaves the building afterwards and shows me that it’s a club on Austurstræti and it’s next to the English Pub. This is city centre Reykjavik and I personally would head back in the direction of the red building to the big bookshop, to the mini supermarket opposite or round the corner to Tjörnin, the “pond” – a nice lake with lots of birds on it. The first time I went, I followed the geese from that street corner and they led me there.
Well, that was quite good fun. I always like to see places I know and can talk about but it’s educational to see places I don’t know and this programme had that in spades. I watched it with my laptop open and added everything to a map as it went on. So if you want to visit any of these places yourself, here they are. I’ve included parking places for some of them and places of interest that I’ve mentioned that don’t appear on the show and of course, there’s so much else to see. But let’s keep the map simple and restricted just to what Xander visits and the odd educational extra.
I’ve also filled in what I can from episodes two and three from synopses I’ve found on the internet but I can’t make it complete until all episodes have aired, so come back for more later! Episode one is green, episode two is teal-blue and episode three is yellow, by the way. I also can’t promise that I’m going to be able to knit them together to offer you a suggested route but we’ll see how logical it ends up being. TV often isn’t in a logical order, in my experience but anywhere, here it is! Follow in Xander’s footprints.
Isn’t it typical that it’s Alexander Armstrong, by the way? His last Nordic travel series, Land of the Midnight Sun, was what inspired me to finally write my book and now that I’ve spent eighteen months of a plague failing to finish the Iceland book, here he comes to do all the Iceland things. Well, guess I’d better get down to work. It’ll be out next autumn. (Hold me to that, please!)
And that’s it for episode one! Next week we go to Husavik, try hákarl, watch whales, play golf, ride a horse and go for a beer spa. I’m looking forward to that one – the north doesn’t get quite the coverage the south-west does and I’m looking forward to seeing it on TV.