Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
city airport, is devoted to Nordic culture, with an extensive library of topic written in
all the Nordic languages. It holds topic on virtually any aspect of Nordic life, from
Faroese knitting to Greenlandic seal hunting as well as the main Nordic newspapers.
There are also temporary
exhibitions
(often photographic) in the hall and basement and
frequent evening events, from classical
concerts
to
talks
covering topics from history to
politics to music (sometimes in English). Check what's on from the posters inside or at
the tourist office (see p.72).
Listasafn Íslands
Fríkirkjuvegur 7 • Tues-Sun 10am-5pm • 1000kr •
W
listasafn.is
A few minutes' walk north from the Nordic House along Sóleyjargata, which runs
along the eastern side of Tjörnin passing the offices of the Icelandic president (at
the corner of Skothúsvegur), is the
Fríkirkjan
(Free Lutheran Church), a simple
wooden structure painted bright white, whose best feature is its tall tower, useful
as a landmark to guide you to the neighbouring former ice house, known as
Herðubreið. Once a storage place for massive chunks of ice, hewn in winter from
the frozen lake and used to preserve fish stocks, the building has been enlarged
and completely redesigned, and now houses
Listasafn Íslands
(the National Gallery
of Iceland). Icelandic art may lack worldwide recognition, but all the significant
names are to be found here, including Erró, Jón Stefánsson, Ásgrímur Jónsson,
Guðmundur Þorsteinsson and Einar Hákonarson - though disappointingly, lack
of space (there's only two small exhibition rooms containing barely twenty or so
paintings each) means that the works can only be shown in strictly rationed portions
from the museum's enormous stock of around ten thousand pieces of art. You
may well leave with your artistic appetite no more than whetted, but you can get
an idea of the paintings not on display by glancing through the postcards sold at
reception; other works from the gallery's collection are also currently exhibited at the
Þjóðmenningarhús (see p.65).
Lækjargata
Northeast of the National Gallery, Lækjartorg leads on to
Lækjargata
, which once
marked the eastern boundary of the town; Tjörnin still empties into the sea through
a small brook (
lækjar
comes from
lækur
, Icelandic for “brook”) which now runs
under the road here, and occasionally, when there's an exceptionally high tide, sea
water gushes back along the brook, pouring into Tjörnin. The cluster of old timber
buildings up on the small hill parallel to the street is known as
Bernhöftsstofan
and, following extensive renovation, they now house a couple of chi-chi fish
restaurants. Named after Tönnies Daniel Bernhöft, a Dane who ran a bakery in
nearby Bankastræti, they're flanked by two of Iceland's most important buildings: the
elegant old Reykjavík Grammar School,
Menntaskólinn
, built in 1844, which once
had to be accessed by a bridge over the brook, and housed the Alþingi before the
completion of the current Alþingishúsið in nearby Austurvöllur square (see p.56); and
a small unobtrusive white building at the bottom of Bankastræti, which is, in fact,
Stjórnarráðshúsið
(Government House), another of Iceland's very parochial-looking
public offices. One of the oldest surviving buildings in the city, built in 1761-71 as
a prison, it now houses the cramped offices of the Prime Minister. Up on
Arnahóll
,
the grassy mound behind the building, a statue of Ingólfur Arnarson, Reykjavík's first
settler, surveys his domain; with his back turned on the National Theatre, and the
government ministries to his right, he looks out to the ocean that brought him here
over eleven centuries ago. Experts believe this is the most likely spot where Ingólfur's
high seat pillars finally washed up; according to
Landnámabók
they were found “by
Arnarhvál below the heath”.
