Reykjavík

The world’s most northerly capital combines colourful buildings, quirky, creative people, eye-popping design, wild nightlife and a capricious soul.

Food & Nightlife

Reykjavík is strikingly cosmopolitan for its size. It's merely a town by international standards, compared with London or Paris, yet it's loaded with captivating art, rich culinary choices, and cool cafes and bars.

The capital has seen a recent surge in restaurant openings, many of the highest standard, and expressing all manner of culinary creativity. Cafes by day turn into restaurants and bars at night. Tapas-style dining, high-concept Icelandic cuisine and burger joints all rub shoulders.

Then join the late-night party. The music scene is epic: excellent festivals, creative DJs gigging and any number of home-grown bands.

History

You can get a full primer on Icelandic history right in central Reykjavík, from its Settlement Exhibition built around the unearthed Viking longhouse of the area's earliest inhabitants to the enormous National Museum, keeper of the country's most precious artefacts.

In the Old Harbour you can enthrall the kids at a high-octane Saga Museum, or learn about the area's maritime history. And, as you make your way around, try to slip behind the shiny tourist-centric veneer to find today's people, who mix aesthetic-minded ingenuity with an almost quaint, know-your-neighbours sense of community.

Art & Design

The capital's art museums, shops and galleries are a perfect insight into contemporary city life. They include outstanding exhibition spaces, such as the Reykjavík Art Museum and National Gallery, as well as shops featuring cutting-edge Icelandic design. Edgy contemporary art galleries such as those in the Marshall House showcase emerging and internationally famous Icelandic artists.

Reykjavík also presents the chance to see Icelandic cinema with English subtitles. Or, wander the streets photographing creative graffiti and public art installations, like the ever-popular seaside Sun Voyager sculpture, which changes guises along with the light.

The Great Outdoors

Even if you come to Reykjavík for a short visit, be sure to take a trip to the countryside. Tours and services abound, and understanding Reykjavík and its people is helped by understanding the vast, raw land they anchor. The majority of Icelanders live in the capital, but you can guarantee their spirits also roam free across the land. Absorb what you see, hear, taste, smell – all part of Iceland's rich heritage.

Take Reykjavík, then add its snow-topped mountains, churning seas and crystal-clear air, and the chances are you'll fall helplessly in love, heading home already saving to return.

Must see in
Reykjavík

  • Old Reykjavík

    Old Reykjavík is the capital’s, and the country’s, historic heart. Here you can do what the locals do: wander streets flanked by imposing 19th-century buildings, stroll beside duck-dotted Tjörnin lake, drop into bars, relax in coffee houses and hunt out finds in design shops. Museums and galleries span photography to contemporary art, while the architecture ranges from the oldest streets around Austurvöllur to the postmodern lines of the Ráðhús (City Hall) and the 21st-century, glass-and-stone annex of the historic Alþingi (parliament).

  • National Museum

    Iceland’s National Museum gathers together the country’s most priceless artefacts, creating a trail of clues to life at Settlement and beyond. Creative, engaging displays see you perusing the finds and gaining insights into the hardy hearts of Icelanders. Stand by for everything from swords, figurines of Norse gods and depictions of dragons to touchingly prosaic items from everyday life: wooden dolls and board game pieces carved from cod ear bones. The free guided tours ensure the stories behind the artefacts spring vividly to life.

  • Hallgrímskirkja

    The capital's iconic church crowns a rise in the city centre, visible for miles around. This is photo opportunity central, with the distinctive sweep of the modernist steeple and the swashbuckling statue of the Viking Leifur Eiríksson forming the backdrop to countless selfies. The most memorable moments though come from listening to one of the regular choir concerts and taking the elevator up the 74.5m-high tower to take in the broad sweep of the city, ocean and mountains beyond.

  • Reykjavík Art Museum

    Over three stunning sites, a feast for the senses, the Reykjavík Art Museum showcases the best of Icelandic art. The curation is superb and draws together the vast steel and concrete space at downtown Hafnarhús, which focuses on contemporary art; the rotating displays of modern art (especially works by former fisherman Jóhannes Kjarval) at Kjarvalsstaðir, and the array of playful sculptures by Ásmundur Sveinsson at the tranquil Ásmundarsafn.

  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The Settlement Exhibition

    The modern era meets Viking remains at this exhibition centred around Reykjavík's oldest ruins. The atmospherically lit, subterranean displays feature the oval foundation walls of a 10th-century Viking longhouse. Artefacts from Reykjavík's first days sit all around – expect to see items ranging from great auk bones to an inscribed spindle whorl – and imaginative displays raise interest levels still further – audio-visual re-creations of the lives of the early settlers, plus a high-tech fly-through of the eras represented in the construction.

  • Harpa

    Both functional and beautiful, the capital’s twinkling concert hall sitting on the water's edge is a testament to Icelandic innovation and Nordic design. It's facade is covered in complex layers of glass panels that appear to shimmer in the light. One of the designers was renowned Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson. Inside there are boutiques, a cafe and a top-notch restaurant, and of course concert halls that host the Iceland Symphony and the Icelandic Opera. If you're lucky you might even catch performers rehearsing during the excellent guided tours.

  • Laugardalur

    Laugardalur is where Reykjavíkers come to play. Perhaps the biggest draw of this park some 4km east of the centre is the vast Laugardalslaug swimming pool complex, which boasts indoor and outdoor pools, a strip of alfresco hot-pots and a swirling waterslide. The district is also home to the seals, foxes and farm animals of the Reykjavík Zoo, the colourful Reykjavík Botanic Gardens, where you'll find the enchanting Cafe Flora tucked into a greenhouse, and the fun, interactive exhibits of the Reykjavík Art Museum – Ásmundarsafn.

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