Reykjavik is full of atmosphere. Photo / Thinkstock
Reykjavik is full of atmosphere. Photo / Thinkstock
Hike a volcano, then traverse icy slopes. Jill Schensul loves the diversity of Iceland.
You don't want the gravel insurance?" the man asked from the rental-car company.
Gravel insurance? Yes, I understand, gravel happens. It flies. It pings. Once in a while it dings. But an entire insurance category? So, like, how much gravel were we talking about, out there on the roads of Iceland? These were certainly new driving considerations.
Then again, this was Iceland - the land of fire and ice and Bjork. A place where you can hike on a lava flow in the morning, ascend a glacier in the afternoon, and after a night of club-hopping enjoy a Northern Lights spectacle.
A place where even the horses, I discovered, march to a different gait.
My first stop was at the edge of the downtown bustle: the decidedly other-worldly Hallgrimskirkja, the tallest church in Iceland, and the tallest building in Reykjavik.
The Icelandic architect designed it to resemble the ubiquitous basalt lava flows here. All white, clean lines swept into Gothic formation. No stained glass, no Jesus on the cross - in fact, even Jesus is sculpted in a simple white, flat plane, Ikea style. The most ostentatious feature is the 25-tonne pipe organ, with 5275 shiny silver pipes.
Reykjavik Center, the oldest part of the city, is full of atmosphere. With its narrow roads and lack of traffic, it's wonderfully walkable, and its character comes spilling from windows, backyards and stoops.
Amble down the path from the church, past the statue of Leifur Eiriksson and you'll hit Skolavordustigur, which along with Laugavegur is one of the city's main shopping streets. Between the two, you'll find a mix of boutiques, galleries, restaurants and cafes.
The area runs the gamut of the cuisine scene but I didn't run into any place selling rugbrauo, the Icelandic bread baked geothermally - that is, buried in the ground near a hot spring for about 12 hours. The bread is dense, slightly sweet and doesn't taste a thing like dirt or sulfur. It's a specialty in nearby Hvargriehg, the geothermal spring capital of the country.
Puffins are among Iceland's quirkiest inhabitants. Photo / Thinkstock
One strange and wonderful aspect of Iceland is how much you can see - how many contrasting and extreme landscapes - in a short amount of time. The Golden Circle is the most popular getaway itinerary. In a loop of about 300km from Reykjavik into central Iceland, you hit Thingvellir National Park, the waterfall Gullfoss and the geothermally active valley of Haukadalur, with faithfully spurting geysers.
You can do it all in one day, even if you add in a stop at the Blue Lagoon, Iceland's best-known hot springs.
Iceland has 100 volcanoes - 30 considered active, meaning they've erupted in the past 200 years or so. The most famous is Hekla, which has erupted 18 times since 1104 - the last time in 2000. On average, a volcano erupts every five or so years in Iceland.
I walked along the hard, black ground, a little like asphalt, a strange illusion of something once fluid, stopped and frozen mid-ooze. I climbed down the crumbling cliff to a crunchy black beach that met the calm bay. Scruffy plants were beginning to take hold. Hole-ridden basalt rocks nestled side-by-side with snail shells in soft cushions of moss. Lichen spattered over stones.
As I rose from inspection, my eyes swept the ground in front of me, and I blinked to clear my vision. The earth was not dirt-coloured or lava-black, but a shining, iridescent blue.
At the top of the road, surrounded by stark mountains striated in zigzag layers of olive green, was a lava flow landscape stretching as far as the horizon, and beyond it the setting sun.
But what I really wanted to see while in Iceland was the horses.
Icelandic horses, I learned during a show at Fakasel Horse Park, are different: smaller, cuter, unique in their gaits, not to mention being an ancient equine breed.
The audience sits in the sturdy, gas-lit stands. The screen changes for each scene and has the premise for each in English. A couple recount Icelandic myths, one about Odin and his eight-legged horse, another about a man who dies and turns into a horse and returns to visit his lover.
Icelandic horses are one of the oldest breeds in the world, brought by the Vikings from 874 to 930, after which the importing of any other breed was banned. The sturdy little horse was once the only means of transportation for centuries. Today, they are mainly used for pleasure riding. And horse theatre, of course.
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Getting there: Air New Zealand flies daily from Auckland to London via Los Angeles. From there, a direct flight to Reykjavik takes three hours.
