Parking, Beer, Brennivin and Fish & Chips
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| Iceland |
Why Iceland?
We have always had a hankering to visit Iceland. Its waterfalls, geysers and volcanic landscapes are certainly worth the journey, but we see
precious little sunshine at home and it feels perverse to take a holiday in a
place with even worse weather. Some go in winter for the northern lights, which
is fine if they show up – and then you can do a tour during the 4½ hours of
daylight which is Reykjavik's meagre January ration.
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| Reykjavik is 64 degrees north, like those other well known holiday resorts Dawson City and Arkangel'sk |
I like light, I like sunshine and most of all I like visiting new places. Iceland in August offers ample light, there can be some watery
sunshine (temperatures usually reach the balmy heights of 14°) and most
importantly Iceland was on the government’s first rather short ‘Green List’. A visit
still required some expensive Covid testing and there were beaurocratic hurdles
to jump, but with our vaccination certificates clutched in our sweaty hands, we
plucked up our courage and leapt.
10/08/2021
The Reykjanes Peninsula
Arriving mid-afternoon, we extracted ourselves from Keflavik Airport with relatively ease, picked up our hire car – we were upgraded to a
much bigger car than I am used to driving – and headed for Reykjavik at the
base of the Reykjanes Peninsula, a distance of 50km.
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| The Reykjanes Peninsula |
Keflavik is on the tip of the Peninsula and we drove through a landscape dominated by fields of basalt rubble, colonised by a few
hardy plants and mosses.
Reykjavik: An Introduction
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| Reykjavik |
With 130,000 citizens, Reykjavik is by far Iceland’s largest city. A further 100,000 live in the ‘Capital Region’ leaving another 120,000
doted around the rest of the island. Iceland is five times the size of Wales
with one eighth of the population – and far fewer sheep - making it, by some
distance, Europe’s most sparsely populated country.
By capital city standards, driving through Reykjavik is easy even in the rush hour. Then we toured round and round our hotel – in an
oddly village-like setting just west of the city centre – searching for parking.
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| Our hotel was the last building on the right in this central Reykjavik Street |
Reykjavik Parking
On-street parking was actually plentiful a short walk (though a longish drag of a case) from the hotel. Parking is generally free in
Iceland, except in Reykjavik, and as the country has a reputation for being
fearsomely expensive, we approached the ticket machine with a trepidation which
turned to bemusement as we tried to make sense of the Icelandic instructions. I
am not the sort of person who believes everything should be written in English
for my benefit, but I do believe any reasonably intelligent person should be
able to work out a parking meter without knowing the language. This machine was
complicated.
A young couple pulled into the bay behind and then came to our assistance speaking fluent, colloquial English like almost every other
Icelander we met. The time was 17:50 and although day-time parking was costly (though not unreasonably so),
from 18:00 to 09:00 it was free. For 100 Icelandic Krona (60p) we could purchase
an hour’s parking that expired at 09:20 the following morning. And we could do
it with the tap of a card, which was convenient as we had no cash.
With the method memorised for next time and very little out of pocket we walked to our hotel and checked-in.
The Strange Story of Icelandic Beer
It had been a long hard day, and stressful in places, so a beer seemed a good idea. The bad news was that in Iceland a beer typically costs around
£8.50 for a half litre. The good news was that we had arrived at happy hour so
it was half price.
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| Happy Hour, Reykjavik |
Icelandic brewing has a strange history. The first settlers in the 10th century were accustomed to drinking beer and mead, but
brewing in Iceland was always problematic and growing barley became impossible
during the mini-ice age (c 1300-1850).
In the first half of the 20th century the USA introduced prohibition and most Nordic countries at least flirted with the
idea. Although ruled by Denmark, which rejected prohibition, Iceland had a
measure of self-government and introduced a complete ban on alcohol in 1915. In
1922 wine was legalised after the Spanish threatened to stop buying Icelandic fish
if Iceland refused to buy their wine. A referendum in 1935 voted to legalise
spirits, but beer was left off the ballot as a sop to the temperance movement.
Consequently, the brewing of beer stronger than 2.25% alcohol remained
prohibited until 1989.
There are now a number of breweries in Iceland and the quality of their beers is impressive. The Egill Skallagrímsson Brewery (named
after the hero of a medieval saga) is the largest and they brew Gull (Icelandic
for ‘gold’), the darkish flavourful lager I am drinking in the picture above. A
small number of craft breweries have appeared in recent years.
Brennivin
While on the subject of alcohol, Iceland's traditional national drink is Brennivin. We bought a bottle in the airport duty free (where
it is very reasonable priced) in case we needed a nightcap.
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| Brennivin |
When re-legalised in 1935 it could only be sold with a monochrome label featuring a skull – hence the nickname ‘svarti dauði' (black
death). The skull has been replaced with a map of Iceland and the monochrome
label is, I suspect, retained out of a perverse pride.
The name derives from ‘burned wine’ (like English brandy) but grapes are not involved. It is distilled from grain
mash (Wikipedia) or potatoes (Rough Guide and Bradt Guide). All agree the only
flavouring is caraway which apparently thrives in Iceland’s cool climate.
Andrew Evans in the Bradt Guide describes it as ‘utterly repulsive.’ I
disagree, if you like the mild aniseedy flavour of caraway, and I do, it is
very pleasant.
Wikipedia suggests it can be used as a substitute for gin or light rum in cocktails. That, I suspect, would be utterly repulsive. Pre
1989 Icelanders used to dump a shot of Brennivin into their weak beer to beef
it up (I doubt that would taste good, either). In 1985 the teetotal Minister of
Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs prohibited pubs from adding perfectly legal
spirits to perfectly legal near-beer. This act of pettiness proved a godsend to the campaign to legalise beer.
Dinner in Reykjavik
A street of restaurants led from our hotel towards the city centre. Prices varied from slightly expensive to eye-watering, though the
menus varied less. We found one place serving puffin, reputedly much eaten in
Iceland’s past. We eschewed it, partly out of cost, partly because seabirds are
common round all coasts, but nobody eats them unless they have to (and that
must tell us something) but most importantly because there are doubts about the
sustainability of the sources.
Eventually we chose the cheapest, a little café with an open kitchen at one end and a sign outside.
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| Sign outside a Reykjavik Restaurant |
You have to admire anyone who would put that outside their restaurant. Three thoughts leapt to mind. 1) If ‘the guy’ had spent his whole pizza
eating life in the USA or even northern Europe, he has no idea what a pizza is
supposed to be like. 2) If he had spent his pizza eating life in Italy, then his
first pizza elsewhere would inevitably be the worst of his life. 3) Wherever he
came from he had never been to Ulan Ude in the Russian far-east (see final
paragraph of this
post.)
We did not eat pizza. Lynne had fish and chips. Yes, Iceland does fish and chips much like at home with tartar sauce (though no mushy peas). The fish was so fresh it could almost swim. I had Mediterranean chicken with rice and pita bread – eastern end of the Med then but neither end is particularly Icelandic. With a
couple of beers it came to less than £50, cheap by local standards.
Towards a Cashless Society
Iceland is the second smallest country (by population) to have its own currency – the Seychelles, a very different island group, is
the smallest.
We paid for parking, beer and dinner by card. Indeed, we paid by card for everything – including a visit to a public toilet – during our stay in Iceland. They have their own currency, but we never saw Icelandic
krona notes or coins. A cashless society is not so far away.
We had no local notes or coins in North Korea either, but there we were not allowed them and could only shop (in Euros) in
a small number of special shops. By contrast they accepted cash only.
Part 1 Introduction to Reykjavik
Part 2 West from Reykjavik along Route 1
Part 3 A Calving Glacier, a Basalt Pavement and an Otherworldly Canyon
Part 4 Vik, Skógafoss and Skógar
Part 5 The Golden Circle, Gullfoss, Geysir and Þingvellir
Part 6 The Snæfellsnes Peninsula: Whale Watching and Fermented Shark
Part 7: Covid Testing, Grindavik and the Blue Lagoon
Part 8: A Day in Reykjavik
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