Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The media
Iceland's main daily paper is the right-
wing Morgunblaðið, available all over the
country and giving thorough coverage of
national and international news.
If your Icelandic isn't up to it, you can get a
roundup of the main stories through the
Iceland
Review
, an English-language newsheet giving
good outlines about main national stories - it's
available in Reykjavík's newsagents or online at
W
icelandreview.com. Reykjavík's bookshops - and
libraries around the country - also have copies of
British and US newspapers
, plus international
magazines such as
Time
and
National Geographic
.
Iceland's
radio
stations
play a mind-numbingly
repetitive menu of commercial pop, classical music
and talk-back shows. The three
television
channels
show a familiar mix of soaps, dramas,
films and documentaries. All these media are
predominantly Icelandic-language only, though
films and TV shows are screened in their original
language with subtitles.
on the unwary; some people celebrate with a big
bonfire, and it's also meant to be good for your
health to run around naked.
Verslunnarmannahelgi
, the Labour Day
Weekend, takes place around the country on the
first weekend in August. Traditionally, everybody
heads into the countryside, sets up camp, and
spends the rest of the holiday drinking and partying
themselves into oblivion; hit any campsite in the
country at this time and you'll be sharing it with
thousands of drunken teenagers. On Heimaey in
the Westman Islands,
Þjódhátið
is held on the
same day and celebrated in the same way - there's
live music, too, and a huge bonfire - though it
nominally commemorates Iceland's achieving
partial political autonomy in 1874.
One event to look out for, though it's not a single
festival, is the annual stock round-up, or
rettir
,
which takes place in rural areas throughout
September. This is when horses and sheep are
herded by riders on horseback down from the
higher summer pastures to be penned and sorted;
some farms offering accommodation allow guests
to watch or even participate.
Festivals
Though Iceland's calendar is predomi-
nantly Christian, many o
cial holidays
and festivals have a secular theme, and
at least one dates from pagan times.
Some are already familiar: Christmas and
Easter Monday are both holidays in
Iceland and are celebrated as elsewhere
in the Western world, as is New Year.
Harking back to the Viking era, however,
Þorrablót
is a midwinter celebration that originally
honoured the weather god Þorri, and became
something to look forward to during the bleakest
time of the year. It is held throughout February,
when people throw parties centred around the
consumption of traditional foods such as
svið
and
hákarl
(see p.36), with some restaurants also laying
on special menus.
Sjomannadagur
, or Seamen's Day (June 4),
unsurprisingly, is one of the biggest holidays of the
year, with communities organizing mock sea-rescue
demonstrations, swimming races and tug-of-war
events. This is followed by another break for
Independence Day
(June 17), the day that the
Icelandic state separated from Denmark in 1944.
Although not an o
cial holiday,
Jónsmessa
, on
June 24, is the day that elves and other magical
creatures are said to be out in force, playing tricks
Sports and
outdoor activities
Iceland has its own wrestling style, called
glíma - a former Olympic sport where
opponents try to throw each other by
grabbing one another's belts - and
there's a serious football (soccer)
following; the Reykjavík Football Club
was founded in 1899, and an Icelandic
consortium owned the English-league
club Stoke City between 1999 and 2006.
Otherwise, there's not a great obsession
with sport, and with most people here go
outside not to play games but to work or
enjoy the Great Outdoors.
The lava plains, black-sand deserts, glacier-
capped plateaux, alpine meadows, convoluted
fjords and capricious volcanoes that make Iceland
such an extraordinary place scenery-wise also offer
tremendous potential for
outdoor activities
,
whether you've come for wildlife or to hike, ride, ski,
snowmobile or four-wheel-drive your way across
the horizon. Further information on these activities
is always at hand in local tourist o
ces, while you
can find out more about the few
national parks
and reserves
from the Department of Forestry or
