Going to Iceland? Here’s what we wish we had known.
- Buy a case of wine on your arrival. Every glass you order at your hotel will cost the equivalent of a full bottle in the wine store. The Vin Buðin shops are the only legal place to buy alcohol except in restaurants.
- Never pass up a pit stop. The public WCs in Iceland are fantastic – modern and clean. And the apparently big town you are heading for may well be a hamlet with no cafe or facilities.
- The most valuable feature in your Icelandic hotel room: towel warming racks. These are perfect for drying the quick-dry travel togs you have squeezed clean with the free body wash in the bathroom’s teacup-sized sink. In a pinch, radiators will do.
- Don’t bother learning a few Icelandic words. This is the first country I have visited where saying “Takk fyrir” (thank you very much) does not earn you a smile or even elicit a response.
- That waterfall/volcanic field/glacier/beach is NOT the most beautiful place you have ever seen. The next place you visit in Iceland will be even more beautiful.
A tribute to Scandinavian design
Hotels in Iceland don’t have the cheery-but-grubby floral carpeting and wallpaper of a US hotel. This is an improvement, but you better LOVE maximum-security gray and beige.
Ifff you lose your rroom key, Olga villlll do a body cavity search to helllllp