Lonely Planet - EARTH

Reykjavik’s most attention-seeking building is the immense concrete church Hallgrimskirkja, star of a thousand postcards and visible from 20km away. For an unmissable view of the city, we should take an elevator trip up the 75m-high tower. In contrast to the high drama outside, the church’s interior is puritanically plain. The most startling feature is the vast 5275-pipe organ, which has a strangely Weapon-like appearance. Between mid-June and mid-August we can hear this mighty beast in action three times per week at lunchtime/evening concerts. The church’s radical design caused huge controversy, and its architect, Guojon Samuelsson, never lived to see its completion – it took a painstaking 34 years to build. Those sweeping columns on either side of the tower represent volcanic basalt – a favourite motif of Icelandic nationalists. Hallgrimskirkja was named after the poet Reverend Hallgrimur Petursson, who wrote Iceland’s most popular hymn book. Gazing proudly into the distance outside is a statue of the Viking Leifur Eiriksson, the first European to stumble across America. It was a present from the USA on the 1000th anniversary of the Alþing.

The world’s most northerly capital combines colourful buildings, quirky people, a wild nightlife and a capricious soul to devastating effect. Most visitors fall helplessly in love, returning home already saving to come back. The city’s charm lies in its many peculiar contrasts, which, like tectonic plates clashing against one another, create an earthquake of energy. Reykjavik offers a bewitching combination of village innocence and big-city zeal. It’s populated by darkly cynical citizens who are nevertheless filled with unstoppable creativity and enthusiasm. In summer the streets are washed by 22 hours of daylight; in winter they’re scoured by blizzards and doused in never-ending night. Reykjavik is a city that treasures its Viking past but wants the future – the very best of it. We will find all the cultural trappings of a large 21st-century European city here: cosy cafes, world-class restaurants, fine museums and galleries, and state-of-the-art geothermal pools. Reykjavik has also become infamous for its kicking music scene and its excessive Friday-night runtier, a wild pub crawl round the small, super stylish clubs and bars. Add to this a backdrop of snow-topped mountains, an ocean that wets the very toes of the town, air as cold and clean as frozen diamonds, and incredible volcanic surroundings, and you’ll agree that there’s no better city in the world.