Why go to Iceland for your 30th wedding anniversary, you might ask? Well, it’s a place that has interested me for years ever since I saw TV pictures of geysers and bubbling mud that emanated from the earth. Besides, we’ve just been to Crete and, having lived in steamy Hong Kong for a few years recently, we no longer crave heat. Reykjavik seemed like a good shout.

Arriving in the evening, we took a stroll around this tiny city, population of just under 123,000 and the world’s northernmost capital city. The weather even in high summer is inevitably rather grey, not in fact frozen but chilly, and perhaps this is what prompts the colorful paintwork of the houses. Rekjavik is a quirky place, with street art and commentary everywhere. It was quiet as we walked around but got going much later in the evening. The sun does not set here until just before midnight at the moment and rises again at 3 am, so perhaps it’s a question of seizing the moment. Or, as is my suspicion, people here are community-minded and it’s this closeness that helps them through the long, cold darkness of winter. 

Taking a picture of the Hallgrimskirkja church, the largest church in Iceland, that took 41 years to build, was like trying to photograph the Taj Mahal, because so many others are competing for the best shot. I was really surprised by the number of international tourists here. I suppose Americans and Canadians can use Iceland as a sort of Europe Lite stop, but there were so many Indian accents, too. The outside of the church is so spectacular that the austere beauty of the inside comes as a surprise. 

We rounded off the evening with an exquisite meal of graflax and just-cooked halibut with asparagus and fennel.