Adventures in Iceland - City vs Rural Life

375,000 people live in Iceland - about the same as Honolulu, Hawaii or Cleveland, Ohio. By American city standards, the entire island is a rural community; yet they have a seat in the United Nations. Eighty percent of the population live in Reykjavik and its Parliament building is small and humbly non-descript.

The center hub of Reykjavik has a small town feel but have great museums, bars and restaurants, shopping and cultural events.

These photos were taken in July and while the sun does set below the horizon, it rises again in just a few hours so it never got dark.

Certain cities have their iconic building; everywhere you are, there it is. The Hallgrimskirkja (Hal-tl-greem-skee-yerk-ya) church sits on top of the hill and it served as a beacon of hope when we were out exploring the city. (Our guesthouse was across the street so we always knew where 'home' was)

The architecture is designed as a tribute to the basalt columns that are so prevalent in Iceland. Note the time is 9:45 (i.e., 21:45). It is not AM but PM - the skies are blue and the sun was still bright and shining.

From the top of the Perlan museum, you have a 360 degree view of Reykjavik.

Commissioned street art are commonplace in Reykjavik. As in many cities across the globe, people feel that if you leave a blank canvas, it will get tagged with unsightly graffiti. But if you put art on it, they tend to leave it alone. Also, with often dreary weather and dark winters, residents like to paint their homes and business with bright colors.

Note the corrugated metal panels on these buildings (and on the previous photo). Because of the harsh environment, residents and business owners choose to cover buildings with them. Some are left unpainted, but that's temporary and it's because the metal has to be exposed to the elements for a few years to rough up the surface before painting.

This building is the Harpa Concert Hall and is where many of the music and cultural events happen. Like the Hallgrimskirkja church in the first photo, the architect designed this building as a nod to nature. The panels reflect iridescent light like scales of fish.

We leave the city behind and venture into the countryside. Along the roadsides, you'll see hay bales rolled up like this and wrapped in plastic, looking like giant marshmallows. Iceland's climate is not conducive to farming as we know it - there's not enough daylight throughout the year so almost everything has to be imported. The only farming going on is growing grass for the sheep to graze on.

Most Icelandic sheep roam wild and they can withstand harsh weather. Many are not fenced in so you may sometimes see sheep in the middle of the road.

This pint sized horse is not a pony; it's a purebred Icelandic horse. They too, roam free like sheep, and they do belong to an owner. They also are left out during the winter because they can stand up to the weather. The risk to the horses is not freezing to death, but they can get covered up in snow. Iceland has historically banned any and all import of horses so they don't inter-breed with them.

Outside of the capital and the larger tourist springboard towns, rural means rural. But leaving no excuse to miss Sunday service, you can always find single room churches like this not too far from your homestead.

Iceland is full of volcanoes, many which are scheduled to do their volcano thing at anytime (this house sits right at the base of one).

An age old story goes that a stranger walks up to a house beneath a volcano. A man comes of the house and a conversation begins. The stranger asks the man if he owns the house. The man answers "yes, in fact I built it myself and quite proud of it." The stranger then asks "why do you build your house right under a volcano?" The man replied, "oh, I don't live in it, I built this house for my mother-in-law."