5 Days In Reykjavik and I Still Think About That Hot Dog

I came to Reykjavik with no plan worth the name. A flight, a room with a radiator that ticked, and a list of places written on the back of an envelope. I used to plan trips for other people for a living, so it felt strange to arrive with so little structure. It also felt like a relief.

What follows is five days as I actually walked them. Two of those days I drove out of the city, because Iceland does not really let you stay put, and three of them I spent moving around Reykjavik on foot with wet shoes. There is a lot of soup in here. There is a hot dog I did not expect to think about for weeks afterward.

Take it loosely. The weather will rearrange it for you anyway.

Day 1, The City on Foot

I gave the first day entirely to the city, no car, no plan past the church at the top of the hill. Reykjavik is small enough that you can walk most of it in a day and still feel like you have rushed nothing. I went from the tower down to the water and back again, eating twice, drinking coffee more than that.

It rained a little. Nobody seemed to notice.

Hallgrimskirkja

I started earlier than I usually move, walking up Skólavörðustígur with the rainbow painted road under my feet and the church getting bigger with every block. The scale of it does something to you. Photos flatten it. Standing at the bottom of that grey concrete front, which was designed to echo the basalt columns you find out in the country, I got actual chills.

Inside is free and almost aggressively plain. No gold, no fuss. Somebody was playing the organ while I was there and the sound moved through the whole space like weather. I paid for the tower, took the lift and then a short flight of stairs, and stood up top looking at coloured rooftops and mountains and the sea all at once.

Do not rush this one. It is not a place you rush. There is a small shop with postcards, and a playground out front with swings, and Leif Erikson standing in the courtyard looking out.

From there I walked, slowly, down the hill toward coffee.

Reykjavik Roasters

A narrow place on Kárastígur, just below the church, and I nearly walked past the door. Inside it is warm and cramped and the layout makes no sense, people coming in the out door, everyone apologising.

The coffee is worth the shuffle. I had a flat white and it was strong and clean, and somebody at the next table was drinking a pour over of the Ethiopian light roast and told me, unprompted, that it tasted of blueberries. There is no decaf. There are no syrups. Two milk options, take it or leave it. I liked that more than I expected to.

The sourdough with butter, cheese and jam is the order. Simple, and somehow exactly right after a flight.

Honest note. The staff are not warm. Several people have said so and they are not wrong. The coffee is good enough that I did not mind, and the benches outside are a fine place to sit when the room gets full.

I wandered on toward the water after, a few minutes north and downhill.

Sun Voyager

The wind off the water hit me before I saw it. Sæbraut runs right along the shore here and there is nothing between you and the sea but a low wall.

It is much bigger up close than in any photo. Steel ribs, like a ship stripped to its skeleton, pointing out toward Mount Esja on the far side of the bay. People kept saying Viking ship. It is not, apparently. It is a dream of a boat, which is a better thing to be.

Everyone takes turns with the photos without being asked, which felt oddly moving. I gave it more time than the two minutes it seems to ask for. An hour disappeared, mostly just leaning on the wall watching the ducks and the light move on the water.

Bring something for the wind. It does not let up.

Eventually I found my way back up into town for lunch, a ten minute walk inland.

Svarta Kaffið

Soup in a bread bowl. That is the whole idea and it is executed perfectly.

In that gap between lunch and the dinner rush I climbed the stairs on Laugavegur into a small dark room with banknotes from all over the world pinned around the top of the walls. Two soups daily, one meat and one vegetarian. I had the lamb and beef, served inside a hollowed loaf, and tore pieces off the rim to dip until there was nothing left.

No reservations. Walk in only, and if you see a free table take it immediately, because it fills without warning. The staff are funny and will happily give you a bit of banter.

One fair criticism I will pass on. The bread soaks up a lot of the soup as you go, so the ratio tips toward bread by the end. I did not mind. I was warm and full and it had started raining outside.

I wandered back down toward the harbour after, maybe fifteen minutes on foot.

Harpa Concert Hall

As the sun started slipping I got to Harpa, and the glass had turned silver and moody, which is apparently what it does when the sky is grey.

The front is built from hundreds of glass cells in a honeycomb pattern, another nod to basalt columns, and it changes completely depending on where you stand. Sharp from one angle, soft and luminous from another. I circled the whole thing twice. Free to go inside, and the ceiling is the thing to look up at, all colour and geometry.

There is a cafe, and a gift shop that is genuinely better than any concert hall shop has a right to be. No performance while I was there, which I regret.

Give it half an hour, more if the light is doing something. Walk past it and you reach a small harbour stretch with shops, and sometimes steam lifting off the water.

The last stop of the day was a short walk from here, five minutes at most.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, the queue I finally joined

I walked past the little stand on Tryggvagata three times over two days wondering why there was always a line.

Then I joined it. The queue moves fast, which is its own kind of miracle. One with everything, which means crispy fried onion, raw onion, mild ketchup, mustard mayo and a creamy remoulade. The sausage is lamb, which gives it a deeper savoury thing than you expect, and the bun is soft, and all of it together is much more than the sum of the parts.

I ate mine standing at one of the outdoor tables in light rain. There are little stands on the tables to rest your hot dog while you drink. Small detail. Very good detail.

Not a sitting place. Queue, eat, bin it, go.

I walked back to the hotel the long way along the water with cold hands and the taste of fried onion still there, and that was day one, done properly.

Day 2, The Golden Circle and a Waterfall You Can Walk Behind

Out of the city early, in a rental car with a heater I did not trust. The Golden Circle gets called overdone, and I understand why, and I would still do it again in a heartbeat.

Steam, then history, then water falling hard enough to soak you through. A good order for a day.

Geysir

Sulphur first. You smell the whole valley before you see anything, that eggy mineral warmth rising off ground that is visibly steaming in a dozen places.

Strokkur is the one that performs, and it goes every few minutes, so there is none of that anxiety about missing it. Sometimes three minutes, sometimes fifteen. The water swells into a blue dome first, holds for half a second, and then goes straight up. I watched it maybe eight times and it got better, not worse.

Stand upwind unless you want a warm shower, and it is worth walking up the little hill behind the field for the view back down the valley.

There is a car park, a coffee house, a shop. It is well managed and it is busy, and a couple of people told me going late in summer evenings means almost nobody around.

From there I drove on, about an hour west, toward the rift valley.

Thingvellir National Park

You walk between two continents here. That sentence sounds like marketing until you are actually inside the Almannagjá rift, with walls of rock either side, and it stops sounding like anything except fact.

Around midday it gets crowded, and the parking is genuinely confusing, so sort out which app takes your payment before you arrive. I did not, and I am still slightly annoyed about it.

The paved path from P1 makes the main sights easy, and the inclines are gentle enough. Down at the bottom there is a small waterfall and an old church and the largest natural lake in the country spread out flat and grey. This is also where the Icelandic parliament first met, in 930, which I kept trying to picture and could not quite.

Plan on a couple of hours, more if you like walking.

Then I drove south and east, about an hour and a half, toward the coast.

Seljalandsfoss

You can see it from the road, a long white ribbon coming off the cliff, and then you park and pay and walk toward it and the sound takes over.

The thing here is that you can go behind it. A path loops right around the back of the falls and for about fifteen seconds of it you are standing under what is effectively a very cold shower. I had waterproofs on and still came out with wet hair, laughing, slightly stunned.

The stones get slippery. Proper shoes, not the ones you like.

Walk a little further along the path to Gljúfrabúi, the smaller one that hides inside a cave in the rock. Almost nobody bothers and they should.

I stood at the back of the water for longer than I meant to, looking out through it at green and grey and wildflowers, and then drove back toward the city in the strange bright late light with my socks damp and my head very quiet.

Day 3, South Coast, Water and Black Sand

The longest driving day and the one I think about most. Three enormous things in a row, each one loud in a different way.

I packed the waterproofs properly this time. Learned that yesterday.

Gullfoss Falls

Earlier than I usually move, again, because the coach parties come later and I wanted the upper platform to myself for a while.

Gullfoss is two tiers and it does not so much fall as disappear, dropping into a canyon so deep that from certain angles the water just vanishes. The volume of it is the thing. You feel it through the ground.

Two viewpoints and both are worth it. The upper one is smooth concrete and easy, with the shop and toilets nearby. The lower is closer, more undulating, and you will get wet from the spray. A long set of stairs links them.

There is a story here I keep thinking about. A farmer’s daughter named Sigríður Tómasdóttir fought to stop this being turned into a hydro plant, and won.

From there I drove south toward the coast, about two hours with the sea appearing suddenly on the right.

Reynisfjara Beach

Fog, when I got there. Which sounds like bad luck and was not.

Black sand, or mostly black pebbles now since a storm took a lot of the sand away, and the Reynisdrangar sea stacks standing offshore like something out of a story. On the other side, the columnar basalt cliffs, so geometric it is genuinely hard to accept nature made them. There is a cave, Hálsanefshellir, that you can walk right into when the tide allows.

Check the warning light before you go near the water. Sneaker waves here are not a rumour, they are a real and serious thing, and you do not turn your back on that ocean.

Walk toward Dyrhólaey and the crowds thin fast. It gets very busy at the car park end in summer.

Honest take. It is more touristed than it wants to be. It is still unlike anywhere else.

I drove back west about half an hour to the last stop.

Skógafoss

You hear it before you turn the corner.

Skógafoss is a wide sheet of water off a straight cliff and you can walk right up to the base, which I did, and was soaked through within about ninety seconds. Mist, not rain. It gets everywhere. The sun came out for a moment and a rainbow set itself up in the spray, low and complete, and I stood there grinning like an idiot.

There are steep metal stairs up the left side to a platform at the top. I climbed them. I will be honest, the view from the bottom is better, and the stairs move slightly underfoot, and if heights bother you at all you can skip it without losing much. The path continues upstream from there if you want to keep going.

As the sun started slipping I drove back toward the city, still damp, radio on, the whole south coast going gold behind me. Best day of the five.

Day 4, Grandi, the Sea Wall and the Dome

Back in the city, and I spent most of the day in Grandi, the old harbour district out past the western end of town. Whales, fish, a flying machine of sorts, and then west to the very edge of the peninsula.

It ended on a hill under a glass dome, looking back at everything I had walked.

Whales of Iceland

Twenty three life sized whales hanging in a dark room out on Fiskislóð, and a blue whale at the end of it that is twenty five metres long and absolutely silences you.

I expected to be bored. I was not. The lighting is low and there are ocean sounds playing so it feels a bit like walking on the sea floor. The information stations are better than they need to be, and there is a free guided talk that is genuinely worth catching.

It is not a big museum and it is not cheap, which is the main criticism you hear and it is fair. But standing under something the size of a house that actually swims out there somewhere made the rest of the week land differently.

Somebody nearby was folding origami whales with their kid. The gift shop is unusually well priced for this city.

From there I walked a few minutes along the harbour road to lunch.

Kaffivagninn

Ceramic fishermen on the shelves. A potted fern. Model ships. The decor at Kaffivagninn on Grandagarður belongs to a different decade entirely and I loved it for that.

It sits right on the old harbour and half the room was local men having coffee, which is always the sign you want. I had the fish and chips, which several people had told me was the best in the city, and I understand the claim. Light, flaky, not heavy. The arctic char special is apparently the one to get if it is on, and the sauce with it gets talked about.

Prices are reasonable for this part of town, which given where you are is a small surprise.

Careful with the buttery dishes. One or two get a bit swamped. Ask, or go with the fried.

From there it is a short walk further along the same street to the next stop, maybe five minutes.

FlyOver Iceland

I nearly skipped this. It sounded like a theme park ride and I was not in the mood.

I am glad I did not. You stand for a couple of short storytelling pre shows, then get strapped into a row of seats that lifts you in front of a huge curved screen, and for nine minutes you fly over the country. Mist on your face. Cold air. A smell of meadow at one point that I cannot explain and did not expect. The whole thing takes around thirty five minutes.

Having already seen Skógafoss and the black sand made it better, not worse. I recognised things.

Fair warning, the seats move a lot and one person near me felt properly travel sick. If that is you, take something first. There is a cafe and free parking, and it is worth booking ahead.

From there I drove west out to the tip of the peninsula, about fifteen minutes.

Grótta Island Lighthouse

The very end of Seltjarnarnes, where the land runs out and there is a small white lighthouse sitting on a tidal island.

When the sun started slipping I walked out along the spit toward it, and it was cold in the way that gets into your jacket sleeves, and there was almost nobody else there. Just wind and birds and water on three sides.

Check the tide before you cross. The causeway goes under and people get stuck out there every year, which is a very avoidable way to ruin an evening. If the water is up, the shore path is lovely on its own and there is a small warm foot pool near the car park to thaw out in.

It is dark enough out here to be one of the better city spots for northern lights, if you are visiting in the right months and the sky cooperates.

I drove back inland toward the hill afterwards, about fifteen minutes.

Perlan

Six old geothermal water tanks with a glass dome on top, sitting on Öskjuhlíð hill above the city. That is Perlan, and it is stranger and better than that description suggests.

Inside there is a real ice cave you walk through, built from actual ice, and it is cold and blue and the highlight for most people including me. There is a planetarium show about the northern lights, which is a decent insurance policy if the sky refuses to perform. A volcano show. An indoor geyser that erupts up through the middle of the building.

The observation deck at the top gives you the whole city, the sea, the mountains behind. There is a rotating restaurant up there too.

It is expensive. Everything here is. I still thought it earned it, and two or three hours went by without me noticing.

I walked down through the wooded paths on the hill afterwards, which nobody tells you about, and got back into town just as the light gave up entirely.

Day 5, Pastry, Harbour, Hot Water

A slower day on purpose. I had learned by then that trying to fit one more thing in was how you ruin a trip like this.

Bakery, then the harbour, then a very long soak in water that looked like it went straight into the Atlantic. I did not want it to end and it did anyway.

Sandholt

When the cafes were still putting out chairs I was already standing in the queue at Sandholt on Laugavegur, and there were seven or eight people ahead of me, and it moved slowly.

Worth it for the counter alone. The pastry display is absurd. I had the cinnamon roll, which is the one everybody points at, crisp on the outside and soft underneath. The pain au chocolat is apparently the better pastry, and the salted caramel brownie has its own following.

If you only want coffee and something to carry, the takeaway line is basically instant. Sitting down is where the wait happens.

I will say the service can be brusque, and more than one person has left irritated by it. Mine was fine. Fast, unsmiling, fine.

The shakshuka gets mixed reviews and I would skip it. Come for the baking.

From there I walked down toward the water, fifteen minutes or so, with a second pastry in my bag.

Old Harbour House

Right on Ægisgarður, facing the boats, with whale watching tours checking in at the same counter. Easy to miss from outside.

The fish and chips here is the thing. Three thick pieces of cod, properly crunchy, tartare and coleslaw included, and it came in at a fraction of what I had been paying elsewhere in this city. Somebody told me they walked the whole of Reykjavik comparing fish and chips and this one won. I believe them.

The lobster soup is rich and comforting, and the hot dogs are quick and good if you just want something in your hand.

It is self service, which surprises some people, and it can be chilly inside. There is an upstairs with better views over the marina.

Not everyone loves it. One person called it a tourist trap. I ate there and I did not agree.

From there it is a short drive or a bus ride round the bay, about twenty minutes, to the last stop of the whole trip.

Sky Lagoon

Warm water and the North Atlantic on the horizon and nothing between the two but the edge of an infinity pool.

I went in the late afternoon and it was drizzling and about twelve degrees and the water was exactly right. No sulphur smell, which I appreciated more than I expected. There is a swim up bar in the middle and the crowberry martini is the one everyone orders, so I did too.

Do the seven step ritual. Several people said the lagoon alone is not worth the price and the ritual is what makes it, and having done both I agree. Cold plunge, sauna with a window looking straight out to sea, cold mist, scrub, steam. My skin was still glowing the next morning.

You can get here on a public bus from town for almost nothing, about thirty minutes with one change. No shuttle needed.

I stayed until the light went properly soft and then went back to pack, warm right through, already sorry to be leaving.

I wrote most of this at night, sitting up in bed with the curtains open, because in Iceland the light does not really commit to leaving. Five days is not enough. It is also, somehow, exactly enough for the city to start feeling like a place instead of a destination.

If you go, and you find something I missed, tell me. I have a feeling there are whole streets in Reykjavik I walked past without looking up.