Reykjavík is the world’s northernmost capital and one of its most immediately walkable — a compact city of colourful corrugated-iron houses, geothermal steam, Viking heritage, and one of the most dramatic church towers in modern European architecture. This post accompanies the YouTube walking tour “[4K] ICELAND, Reykjavik. Walking Tour Around Hallgrimskirkja,” which circles the city’s most iconic landmark and explores the surrounding streets. It is the companion to your reykjavik walking tour.
About This Walking Tour
This 4K tour focuses on the area around Hallgrímskirkja — the expressionist Lutheran church that towers 74.5 metres above the surrounding streets and is visible from almost everywhere in Reykjavík. The church, designed by state architect Guðjón Samúelsson and constructed between 1945 and 1986, was explicitly designed to echo the columnar basalt lava formations found throughout Iceland. Its tower, clad in reinforced concrete shaped to suggest these hexagonal columns, is unmistakable. The statue in front of the church is of Leifur Eiríksson, the Norse explorer who reached North America around 1000 AD, five centuries before Columbus — a gift from the United States for Iceland’s 1,000th anniversary of its parliament in 1930.
The surrounding area covered by the walk includes Laugavegur, Reykjavík’s main shopping and restaurant street, lined with colourful low-rise buildings in the corrugated iron that characterises much of the city’s 19th- and early 20th-century vernacular architecture. The walk also reaches the waterfront near the Harpa Concert Hall and the Sun Voyager (Sólfar) sculpture — a stylised Viking ship by Jón Gunnar Árnason (1990) facing the bay at Faxaflói.
Highlights of Reykjavík
Hallgrímskirkja took 41 years to build from 1945 to 1986 and its tower, at 74.5 metres, is the tallest structure in Iceland. A lift to the tower observation deck offers panoramic views over the city and, on clear days, to the surrounding mountains and the ocean. The Harpa Concert Hall (2011), designed by Henning Larsen Architects with a distinctive honeycomb glass facade by artist Ólafur Elíasson, sits on the waterfront and has been the home of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra since its opening. The Sun Voyager (Sólfar), a stainless steel sculpture on the Sæbraut waterfront, is often described as a Viking ship; the artist Jón Gunnar Árnason described it as “a dream boat, an ode to the sun.” The National Museum of Iceland traces the story of Norse settlement from the first settlers in the 9th century through the medieval Icelandic Commonwealth and the modern republic. Reykjavík runs entirely on renewable energy — geothermal and hydroelectric — and its famous outdoor thermal pools (including the recently opened Sky Lagoon) are heated by this clean geothermal energy.
A Brief History of Reykjavík
Iceland was settled from Norway beginning around 874 AD; the traditional founding date is 874, when Ingólfr Arnarson established the first permanent Norse settlement at Reykjavík (“Smoky Bay,” named for the geothermal steam). Iceland established the world’s oldest parliament, the Althing, in 930 AD. The island came under Norwegian and later Danish rule and gained independence in 1944 when it declared a republic during the German occupation of Denmark. Reykjavík grew from a small trading post to a city only in the 19th and 20th centuries; it now contains about two-thirds of Iceland’s entire population of 370,000.
Practical Tips
Reykjavík is in the GMT time zone (UTC+0, no summer clock change). The currency is the Icelandic króna (ISK). Icelandic is the language; English is universally spoken. The entire walk covered in this video is within a compact area of about 2 kilometres; no public transport is needed. The city is best visited in June–August for the midnight sun and in December–February for Northern Lights (aurora borealis); the Northern Lights are not visible from within the city due to light pollution, but tours depart daily from the harbour. Iceland is one of the most expensive countries in Europe — budget accordingly.
Watch & Explore More
The 4K video above is a great introduction to Hallgrímskirkja and central Reykjavík — watch it to get the lay of the land. More Scandinavian walks at @walkingtoursvideoscom. Related guides: Oslo: Aker Brygge to Vigeland Park and Stockholm: Gamla Stan to Södermalm.