The Rough Guide to Iceland (Paperback)

~ David Leffman (Author), James Proctor (Author) "Until recently, Iceland was one of the most expensive countries in Europe to reach from Britain, due in large part of Icelandair, Iceland's national airline,..." (more)
Key Phrases: New Zealand, New York, North America (more...)

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Product Description

INTRODUCTION

Resting on the edge of the Arctic Circle and sitting atop one of the world’s most volcanically active hotspots, Iceland is nowadays thought of for its striking mix of magisterial glaciers, bubbling hot springs and rugged fjords, where activities such as hiking under the Midnight Sun are complemented by healthy doses of history and literature. It’s unfortunate, then, that one of the country’s earliest visitors, the Viking Floki Vilgeroarson, saw fit to choose a name for it that emphasized just one of these qualities, though perhaps he can be forgiven in part: having sailed here with hopes of starting a new life in this then uninhabited island, a long hard winter in around 870 AD killed off all his cattle. Hoping to spy out a more promising site for his farm he climbed a high mountain in the northwest of the country, only to be faced with a fjord full of drift ice. Bitterly disappointed, he named the place Island (literally "ice land") and promptly sailed home for the positively! balmy climes of Norway.

A few years later, however, Iceland was successfully settled and, despite the subsequent enthusiastic felling of trees for fuel and timber, visitors to the country today will see it in pretty much the same state as it was over a thousand years ago, with the coastal fringe, for example, dotted with sheep farms, a few score fishing villages and tiny hamlets – often no more than a collection of homesteads nestling around a wooden church. An Icelandic town, let alone a city, is still a rarity and until the twentieth century the entire nation numbered no more than 60,000. The country remains the most sparsely populated in Europe, with a population of just 272,000 – over half of whom live down in the southwestern corner around the surprisingly cosmopolitan capital, Reykjavik. Akureyri, up on the north coast, is the only other decent-sized population centre outside the Greater Reykjavik area.

But if the coast is thinly populated, Iceland’s Interior remains totally uninhabited and unmarked by humanity: a starkly beautiful wilderness of ice fields, infertile lava and ash deserts, windswept upland plateaux and the frigid vastness of Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier. Even in downtown Reykjavik, crisp, snow-capped peaks and fjords hover in the background, evidence of the forces that created the country. And Iceland’s location on the Mid-Atlantic ridge also gives it one of the most volcanically active landscapes on Earth, peppered with everything from naturally occurring hot springs, scaldingly hot bubbling mud pools and noisy steam vents to a string of unpredictably violent volcanoes, which have regularly devastated huge parts of the country. It’s something that Icelanders have learned to live with: in June 1998, when Reykjavik was rocked by a major earthquake, the ballet dancers at the National Opera performed right through it without missing a step.

Historically, the Icelanders have a mix of Nordic and Celtic blood, a heritage often held responsible for their characteristically laconic approach to life – taps in hotels often drip, buses don’t depart to the stroke of the driver’s watch, and everybody, including the President and the Prime Minister, is known by their first name. The battle for survival against the elements over the centuries has also made them a highly self-reliant nation, whose dependence on the sea and fishing for their economy is virtually total – hence their refusal to allow foreign trawlers to fish off Iceland during the diplomatically tense 1970s, sparking off three "Cod Wars", principally with Britain. However, their isolated location in the North Atlantic also means that their island is frequently forgotten about – Icelanders will tell you that they’ve given up counting how many times they’ve been left off maps of Europe – something that deeply offends their strong sense of national pride. For all their self-confidence though, they can seem an initially reserved people – until Friday and Saturday nights roll around, when the bjor starts to flow, and turns even the most monosyllabic fisherman into a lucid talkshow host, right down to reciting from memory entire chunks of medieval sagas about the early settlers.

About the Author

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

David Leffman is co-author of Rough Guide to Australia, China and Indonesia. James Proctor studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides (May 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1858285976
• ISBN-13: 978-1858285979
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,468,555 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good First Effort for a Great Series, September 5, 2001

By	James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

The ROUGH GUIDE series has produced some wonderful books -- I am particularly fond of the titles on France and Scotland, which I have used extensively. This is their first crack at Iceland, and it is a commendable, if not outstanding, effort.

As a result of a recent 15-day trip to Iceland, I can say that it is mostly reliable but far from exhaustive. For one thing, the emphasis is on sleeping bag accommodations exclusively. (Okay, maybe I'm not quite so "rough" a traveler: Two weeks in the same smelly down bag is not my idea of comfortable travel.) Also, the book omits many very viable accommodation options, such as the Bolti farmhouse at Skaftafell. Also many oustanding restaurants such as the well-known Bautinn in Akureyri are unaccountably missing.

What did this guide have to say about my guesthouse in Reykjavik (the excellent Baldursbra)? Only that it had "rather narrow beds and unfortunate floral curtains." Good grief! Firstly, the size of single beds in Iceland tends to be quite standard: No extra inches were shaved off. Secondly, the curtains were indeed floral but not so aggressively bad as suggested by the writers of the guide, who appear to have been suffering from a bad hair day.

On the plus side, the "Basics" and "Contexts" sections are both useful and entertaining introductions to travel in this most fascinating of destinations. I've always regarded a good bibliography as an asset to any guide, and this one has an excellent one. Included is a helpful summary of the key Icelandic sagas, a knowledge of which is essential to understanding the uniqueness of Iceland.

You won't go far wrong with this guide, but there is room for improvement in editions to come. For now, I recommend the 2001 Edition of the Lonely Planet Guide as being the most authoritative guide.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loaded with useful information, September 29, 2003

By A Customer

I've not used other Rough Guides before, but a friend swears by them, so I tried this one for Iceland. I also got the Insight Guide, which had pretty pictures and background info but little else. The Rough Guide was infinitely more useful, and I totally relied on it during a weeklong trip around Iceland. We drove all the way around the ring road and out to the Westfjords, and the only incorrect piece of information we found in the entire book was the price at one guest house. Plenty of info on where to stay and eat, what to see and do, and background information was useful and interesting. My one criticism is the maps, they are small and only of small regions of the country (but what are you going to do in such a small book?). It would have been nice to have a large, comprehensive map of the island, so we bought a large road map in addition. The book was particularly useful in the isolated parts of Iceland where 'towns' on maps consisted only of a single house or 2. It was comforting to know the Rough Guide contained accurate information we could rely on to find a place to stop on those remote roads.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars So much to see!, June 14, 2001

By	"swilsen" (St. Louis, MO, USA) - See all my reviews

We had a 3-day stopover in Iceland, and used the Rough Guide as our main source of information. The information in the book was accurate and very useful, especially when driving in the less populated areas. It was nice to know which towns had fuel stations, cafes, guesthouses, etc. It was a little confusing when we drove east from Vik, and the book was written as if driving west toward Vik, but we managed.

The sections on culture and history were also very useful when planning a trip to a place we'd never been before. This book and a good map (1250 ISK at the tourist information desk) is all you should need for a great trip.