Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He named the place “smoky bay” (
reykja
meaning “of smoke”,
vík
meaning “bay”,
cognate with English
wick
), mistakenly thinking that the distant plumes of steam
issuing from boiling spring water were smoke caused by fire. It was a poor place to
settle, however, as the soil was too infertile to support successful farming, and Reykjavík
remained barely inhabited until an early seventeenth-century
sea-fishing
boom brought
Danish traders here, after which a small shanty town to house their Icelandic labour force
sprang into existence. Later, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
Skúli Magnússon
,
the official in charge of Reykjavík's administrative affairs (
landfógeti
), a man today
regarded as the city's founder, used Reykjavík as a base to establish Icelandic-controlled
industries, opening several mills and tanneries and importing foreign craftspeople to pass
on their skills. A municipal charter was granted in 1786, when the population totalled a
mere 167 - setting the course for Reykjavík's acceptance as Iceland's capital. At the end
of the eighteenth century, the city replaced Skálholt as the national seat of religion and
gained the Lutheran Cathedral, Dómkirkjan; eighty years later, with the opening of the
new Alþingi building, it became the base of the national parliament.
Since independence in 1944,
expansion
has been almost continuous. As a fishing
harbour, a port for the produce of the fertile farms of the southwest and a centre for a
variety of small industries, Reykjavík provides employment for over half the country's
population. The city has also pioneered the use of geothermal energy to provide
low-cost heating - which is why you have to wait for the cold water instead of the hot
when taking a shower, and why tap water always has a whiff of sulphur.
Over recent years there's been a substantial boom, too, in
tourism
. The ever-increasing
visitor numbers to Reykjavík are largely due to the greater number of airlines now
operating to Iceland, and the collapse of the country's banking system and currency in
2008 which saw prices drop by half virtually overnight for anyone converting money
into the formerly overvalued Icelandic króna. Consequently, Iceland has never provided
better value for money.
1
Central Reykjavík
You'd be hard pushed to find another capital as diminutive as Reykjavík, and a leisurely
walk of just an hour or two will take you around almost the entirety of the centre. Such
smallness accounts for the city's lack of contrasting and well-defined areas: for simple
convenience, we've divided the central portion into two sections separated by the lake,
Tjörnin
, and the road,
Lækjargata
, which runs from the lake and Reykjavík's main
square,
Lækjartorg
, down towards the harbour. Even the few things of note further out
from the centre can be reached in a few minutes on public transport.
Lækjartorg and Austurstræti
The best place to get your first taste of Reykjavík is the area around
Lækjartorg
and
the adjoining pedestrianized
Austurstræti
on its western side - a general meeting place
for Reykjavík's urbanites, where people stroll, strut and sit on benches munching
cakes, ice creams and burgers bought from the nearby fast-food outlets and the
10-11
supermarket. The square has always been at the heart of Reykjavík life; indeed,
it was here that farmers bringing produce to market ended their long journey from
the surrounding countryside, and set up camp to sell their goods. Lækjartorg was once
overlooked from its western end by the headquarters of the main daily newspaper,
Morgunblaðið
, the implication being that journalists needed only to look through their
windows to discover what was happening in the city - which was usually very little.
Today, however, the area can be one of the most boisterous in the city. On Friday and
Saturday evenings, particularly in summer, hundreds of drunken revellers fill the square
when the clubs empty out at 5 or 6am, jostling for prime position - although the
