“In the home, fridges will automatically replenish themselves by talking to food suppliers; ovens and heating systems will respond to commands from your smartphone. Cars may even drive themselves, sharing GPS data to find the best routes. For industry, commerce and infrastructure, there will be even more reliance on cyber networks that critics claim are potentially vulnerable to intrusion.”

The threat they fail to think of is economically-motivated hacking, could we see viruses that swap products to particular brands when your fridge automatically orders? This could be to earn the miscreant referral bonuses or simply benefit a particular brand (“My fridge will only order XXX bread”). Instead of corporate espionage, we could see corporate-sponsored hacking.

The company could deny it but a spike in sales from 100,000 households ordering an extra bottle of whatever, or switching their brand, before they realise they’re infected would be a big sales boost.  How about automated cars that drive past fuel stations of certain providers (out of protest by eco-hacktivists or for commercial gain)?  How about changing your route to drive you past certain billboards or to take you down toll roads when they can be avoided?

Even if they just want to mess with you having three-dozen bottles of milk delivered each day is going to be an expensive inconvenience (especially if they know you’re away).  Perhaps burglars will hack your fridge to see when your orders are suspended as a way of knowing you’re out of town.

Very few devices are connected at the moment and each has such a different underpinning it means there’s no easy way to target large numbers, but standardisation will come and hackers are patient regardless.

I don’t know anyone who has a basement, which is strange for a nation as populous as ours, certainly one that is (relatively) land poor (actually, we only rank as the 53rd most densely populated country, though that is the UK rather than England, which is close to 30th). In London it seems basements were all the craze (back in 2009 at least) to expand your home as there was no other way, but it doesn’t seem done much anywhere else.

I’m not just talking about homes either, what about commercial buildings, why aren’t they adding floor space and parking below ground so they can better utilise the space above?  I’m not the only nutter inspired thinker to propose making better use of space below the surface either, just look at this design for an ‘Earth-scraper’ from an architect in Mexico.

With the desire for parking seemingly endless, I would have thought it was stupid not to include a subterranean car park to provide space for people using the building and make more efficient use of the landmass (instead of building a car park beside it, for instance).

Obviously there’s additional cost in adding basements, but it’s much cheaper to do it before you build something than to retro fit it, yet I’ve never seen a house offered with a basement, new or old.  Compared to the cramped space and inaccessibility of a loft you’d have thought a basement would be a great alternative, giving your an entire floor that isn’t (as much) at the mercy of the ambient temperature.

Maybe we have the wrong sort of geography for basements (although we’re geographically stable and if they can do it in London, which is a clay-lined depression with a river running through it, I can’t see why we aren’t doing it elsewhere).  Then again, maybe it’s just an attitude, we’ve never built them so we assume there’s no demand for them and because no one has ever had one no one demands them.

So what you do not want to meet is a cyclist, because the road isn’t wide enough to go around them if there’s anything coming the other way.  If you do meet one you end up sat behind them travelling at ten miles an hour, or, usually, much less (meet one going up hill and it feels more like you’ve stopped). When there’s a lot of traffic coming the other way it can be hugely frustrating, especially when you add the pressure of traffic behind you.

What’s worse is that there are plenty of cycle paths around where I live and the cyclists are often pedalling along, blocking my smooth transition, right beside a path dedicated to them. It has caused me to utter more than a few obscenities at the offender.

Generally I can sympathise though. I’ve been out on a bike in the not-too-distant past and there’s a frustration when using cycle paths because they’re an afterthought, built by people who don’t cycle. Taking a pavement, widening it a bit (if at all) and slapping a sign on it does not make a cycle path.

I liken cycling to being a lorry driver. I’ve had the displeasure to drive a van that was so slow that I adopted the same techniques as lorry drivers to avoid losing momentum at all costs, because once it’s gone, it takes forever to build back up. That’s why you see lorries sat on the back of the vehicle in front, or overtaking at a speed barely faster than the vehicle they’re passing, purely to keep rolling along, because the minute they touch the brakes they know it’ll take miles to get back up to speed again.

The same is true for cyclists, once you’re motoring along it takes far less energy to maintain it and you just want to keep cruising. The cycle paths in the UK constantly force cyclists to drop down curbs, or come to a halt to cross roads, or divert off around traffic lights or roundabouts. Not to mention they’re often in small stretches which either simply end, or in one case near me, switches sides of the road. If cyclists stick to the road they don’t face these problems.

I lived in the Netherlands for a bit and there is a country that knows how to handle cyclists. (My colleagues and I used to joke that walking was the lowest-ranking mode of transport with bicycles way out in front, then cars and finally pedestrians, often sidelined to a thin strip of path.) You see, their cycle paths are designed as routes to get to places, like roads are, not just small strips that eventually spit you out onto a road or just stop. When a cycle path meets a road in Holland, not only does the cyclist have right of way, the road surface is raised up (similar to some speed humps in the UK) to meet the path and allow a smooth transit. (Talk about synchronicity, I had a link to this post on the Atlantic in my NextDraft email last night, some good ideas there.)

So if the government wants to encourage a cleaner, healthier form of transport, namely cycling, then they need to start designing the environment to better cater for them, at the moment its success has largely been in spite of the poor environment they have.

So come on, Dave (Cameron), help me stop swearing at cyclists and let’s start addressing the problem in a smarter way, rather than just painting a strip down the side of the road and ticking the box to say we’re doing our part, because we’re not.

(On a related not, I have to confess some of Jon Hick’s bike creations are whetting my appetite, those are some stylish machines.)

My theory has been that we need to pick a nation, one with a stable and open-minded government, then attack the problems in that country as a showcase to the rest.  The help would mainly be through advice and expertise. The first issue is feeding the country, aside from the obvious issue that you can’t achieve anything if your people are starving, it avoids the need for handouts and frees up money used to buy in food for other things.

So you look at improving farming techniques, run schools for farmers on how to improve crop yields, simple stuff, tailored to their environment and crops, but enough so the country is capable not just of feeding itself, but also generating a surplus to sell.

Next you’d want to look at getting the country to create revenue streams. At the moment this is largely done from selling whatever natural resources they have, but you make more money from manufactured goods. So you bring in advisers and experts in relative industries based on their available resources and you setup manufacturing to supply products to the region and reduce the reliance on imports.

Once you have money coming in from goods and crops, you can turn to focus on infrastructure; things like roads to improve trade, water supplies to improve health and education. Slowly the cycle can build and slowly you drag the country out of poverty.

All of this is a long-term plan, not something you could setup overnight, or with just a handful people, it needs government-level buy-in, though probably not that many experts, you teach the locals, they teach each other. But how exactly do you decide on what to do in which order or which industries are appropriate? The answer is no one knows. So I’m thinking we could try and use a computer game, partly to help understand the consequences of decisions.  Partly to educate people on the issues in Africa, partly to learn what could work.

What I’m talking about is something like SimCity or Civilization, something where you have a map of Africa with generated political situations (for fear of offending anyone). They could be randomly generated, but in an effort to see how different strategies work they may be better standardised so you can see how competing players fare, plus it generates competition. They you let players pick a country with the end goal of becoming a developed nation with a self-sustaining economy.

The variable factors would be anything from political regime (dictators and war lords through to democracy), differing levels of corruption (which would adapt as the game progressed), different natural resources, climates, amount of cultivatable land, local demand, warring neighbours.  Then you have curve balls like natural disasters, coups, disease and cash flow. You’d have to decide what to do or invest in at each point and poor decisions could set you back or even bring you down.

The underlying programming would be interesting, just how do you predict the outcome of turning the Sahara into a solar energy scheme or decide whether clearing rainforest for agriculture has benefits or drawbacks?

Still, I think it’d make an interesting game to play and, who knows, it might lead to some ideas for helping Africa in a sustainable way rather than just throwing money at the problem and thinking our job is over.

The year was 2003 and I had stopped off in San Jose to stay with my parents for a while on on my way back from nine months of travelling. While I was there, late into the night and early hours as the rest of the family slept (I could sleep late) and my mum’s venerable Dell was free, I taught myself how to build websites with CSS instead of tables (which is what I’d previously used). I also taught myself some Javascript, some PHP and MySQL and I started to build some of my numerous websites (at one point I had so many a friend commented I could have started my own internet).

Many of those sites are now gone, but one of those early registered domains still exists in my portfolio. Fund a Film was an idea spawned from reading an article about a woman who had asked her site visitors to donate money to help her get out of debt (it may even have been Save Karyn). I figured that if people were prepared to donate (at that point) $13,000 to a stranger to help her out of a whole she created, why wouldn’t they do it for a chance to be part of making a movie?

I started building the site, I already had the film idea, I figured it could be shot ultra-low budget for £50,000 (purely a guess, I had no real experience). So all I needed was 50,000 people prepared to donate £1. Or 50 who were prepared to spend £1,000. More likely it would be some combination of the two and many between.  Donors were offered a series of incentives depending on how much they donated, from credits to set visits to DVDs to a role as an extra. It’s similar to what Kickstarter projects do now. I’m not sure if I thought that up or borrowed it from somewhere (which I suspect).

Not only could you donate money, if you were in the industry you could donate experience and services too.  I even had the option to buy merchandise where the profits would go to the film too, so you could show support and raise money. All with online ordering through the site I should add. There’s even mention of an eBay shop on the website files tucked away on my hard drive. The donations were tracked on some sort of donation thermometer (Kickstarter uses more of a progress bar).

Maybe it’s time to let the idea go, with the likes of Kickstarter and others doing such a great job. I’m not surprised that Film & Video had the second highest number of successful projects (after music) and by far the most money pledged in 2011. All I’m waiting for now is the first crowd-funded blockbuster. It’s nice to realise you’re idea was good even if you didn’t manage to capitalise on it.

I haven’t found a watch as such (I have a temporary one) and the Pebble is due in September, I may wait and see.  I briefly thought of using an iPod Nano with one of the watch bands available.  The idea of having storage, music and whatever else on my wrist along with telling the time appealed.  But you have to charge them quite often (at least you can charge them, it was changing the battery that killed my last watch, hence the hunt) and I doubted I call on the music (requiring I carry headphones all the time) or other facilities all that often.

I looked up a watch with an OLED screen I remembered, but the screen was tiny and didn’t really appeal. Having been reading about E-ink screens I thought they might be suitable alternative to traditional watch displays, providing more room and option, but while still having low power draw. Guess what the Pebble uses (as it is, the Pebble only lasts 7 days)? I couldn’t decide whether I wanted digital or analogue for my new watch, but I figured a digital screen could switch between either, or something else, giving much more flexibility.

There are already watches that connect to your phone to show the caller ID, or incoming text messages, some that will help track your fitness regime or monitor your health. There’s isn’t one that allows you to decide what it can do and that’s what’s exciting about the Pebble. Demand was obviously there.

You could say I’m late to the party on this one, but the story is still told in my family of my watch designs. You see my grandad used to work for Toshiba and I drew some designs and sent them to him. The designs featured TVs, video players (which show how old they were), fire extinguishers (I’m working from memory here) and lots of other cool(er) features. Oh, and they told the time.

Toshiba never made them (I don’t doubt my grandad passed them on to the product development team, obviously), but I bet they feel foolish now.

Obviously, I’m not the first to say it (though I’m not sure 2012 will see any significant change as some have predicted) but a big growth area in tech in the near future will be data.  There’s already plenty of companies working in the sector, but they’re mainly aimed at helping business better understand things like sales data, demand and customer profiling.  What we’re going to see is a growth in personal data collection, analysis and manipulation.

If you’re interested in personal data tracking, you may have heard of Nicholas Felton (I found him through Jason Kottke), who produces a beautiful personal annual report each year (as of 2005 at least).  Felton has even co-authored a site called Daytum to allow you to collect and track everyday data.  I’m a fan of tracking data, that’s why I built some tools into Write Here to allow you to track your progress (here’s my profile page for example), for which I have to credit Buster Benson and his site, 750words.com, as inspiration.

Real deep collection and analysis is already being done by the outliers, the few who are prepared to make the effort to collect this data manually, but it’ll go mainstream once the collection is more automated and when companies offer services that add value to this data.  The FT reported last year about people such as Michael Galpert, an internet entrepreneur who collects data to ‘optimise physical and mental performance.’  There’s a great article over the the NY Times from 2010 and a website dedicated to self quantification.

The problem with these ‘self quantifiers’ is that it often requires a lot of manual entry and analysis to get any benefit, and people are lazy.  But devices to streamline this collection already exist (in the FT article it talks of scales that upload weight and body mass data, sleep information from a headband and more) and collection and tracking is going to be added to a lot more things in the coming years.  We already have energy monitors, for example, to track our power usage at home, and GPS tracking apps and watches so you can check out your fitness routine.  That is just the tip of the iceberg (I know, a poor choice of word considering we’re so close to the Titanic centenary).

Most could be collected by adapting existing devices (e.g. watches to track your steps, distances, locations, heart rate, temperature; scales for weight, etc) and use of existing data sets (for example, you financial records from banks) could make up a significant part.

Why would you want to track this data?  My bank already offers tracking of my spending habits to show where my money goes based on categories, which is great if I’m looking to save money or spot problems.  For example, before signing up for a monthly DVD rental service I could see what my average spend per month on DVDs is to see if it’s worth it.

Aside from financial health, what about actual physical health?  Monitoring your pulse, temperature, urine content, weight, breath, nutrient levels, sleep patterns and numerous other things could help spot problems long before they become serious. They could also be used to help you live longer, minimise illness, increase intelligence (some have claimed they can do it), increase fertility, whatever.  It could lead to very personlised treatments, even tailored drugs.

Does that interest you?  No?  What if everyone else is doing it, would you need to keep up? How about analysing your route to work, your work methods and your leisure time to suggest where efficiencies could be made?  How about analysing how your child learns to tailor a syllabus to them and not just what the rest of the class are doing?  What about analysing your grocery shop and suggesting products in sizes or brands that offered better value or had better reviews?  There’s a million things, most of which haven’t been thought of yet.

It’s all very well collecting the data, but then you’ll need to understand it, and that’s where the data companies come in, offering packages to watch your health and send you updates and alerts, tracking your progress on a task and issuing a pat on the back (maybe a points scheme, making life a game, i.e. Foursquare), suggesting small tweaks and modifications to your diet, your daily schedule or your thinking.

The data that keeps making headlines because companies are tracking it may soon be working for us, not just advertisers, which is when we’re going to want it back.

In my lounge, like many people, I have a lamp that runs off a timer.  Mainly to turn on in the evening, partly for security, but also on winter mornings I have it come on so I’m not groping around in the dark.  The problem is keeping it updated with when it needs to come on.  In winter the light needs to come on sometimes at 5pm or earlier, while as we get to the height of summer it’s more like 9 or 10pm.  This is not a new, or I’m sure unique, problem.

My idea then is simple: add a light sensor.  Set the time to switch the lamp on and, before it comes on, a light sensor checks the ambient light.  If it’s too light (this may need to be adjustable), then the lamp doesn’t switch on until the light level drops. Obviously it needs some sort of override to stop it promptly switching itself off when the lamp turns on and the light level rises.

I’m not sure I’ve worked out all the kinks yet, for example, how does it handle plugs that are behind something?  That’s part of the reason for the adjustable level check, maybe an extendable sensor to get it closer to the light would work.

Ideally you want a bit more intelligence, but then you’re pushing the costs right up.

For example, I’m thinking, going forward, I might try a combination of a Raspberry Pi (or my existing always-on server), with some sort of X10 or RF interface and an X10/RF lamp or socket adapter.  I have no experience with any of these, but I reckon it will be possible to write a bit of code to check the time the sun sets, perhaps combine it with the weather forecast (clouds mean it’ll be dark earlier than blue skies) and then knock off some time and trigger the lamp to come on, so it adapts automatically over the course of the year.  If you want to get really clever you could add in some randomising factors to make it less obvious it’s a timer and/or control multiple lights/devices to add that into the mix too.

You could even set it to only come on for certain months or if sun rise of sun set occur before or after certain times (to switch lamps on for dark mornings, for example).

Might be a little overkill just for some lighting, but maybe I can find a suitable device to open and close my curtains for me too (when I’m away).  Home automation here we come (and don’t think this sort of thing won’t be standard by the end of the decade).

There’s already been talk about contact lenses that can project images in front of your eyes, which are already showing promise and are probably the next step after the glasses/goggles that Google is suggestion.  After that you’re probably looking at something to influence the optic nerve (they’re basically electrical impulses after all), initially outside the skull, but eventually buried in your skull.  To support this we’re going to need new ways to interact, speech isn’t going to cut it in all instances, so some sort of pupil or thought navigation would be my guess.

Mind you, if you think the technology in Google’s demo video is unlikely to see the light of day for a long time, that it’s just a video filled with CGI, you’ll be surprised to know someone has already knocked up a prototype using available technology.  That’s not to say there aren’t problems to overcome yet.  There’s no suggestion what provides the processing power, or  what the the battery life’s like, or what it weighs or how it connects on the go.

One problem with constant access though, will it just mean we end up being pestered by adverts everywhere we go?

Arrival and General Information

To start with, you’ll probably fly into Keflavik as it’s the international airport.  It’s about an hour away from Reykjavik by coach, so it’s well worth pre-booking a transfer (we were on the Flybus) or car hire from there.

In terms of language, obviously the population speak Icelandic, but everyone (or most everyone) speaks English, at least to some degree.  This filters out to most of the mediums you’ll interact with too.  For example, a lot of the TV programmes are in English with Icelandic subtitles, for example.  You can buy English-language books, magazines and even DVDs.  Most of the tourist information is in English, most of the tours are conducted in English (other languages are available, but sometimes only on certain days) and most of the information boards are in Icelandic and English.

Local currency is the Icelandic Krona (Isk).  If you want to take some with you it’s probably wise not to leave it to the last minute as few places seem to stock it and it’ll take a few days to order in.

The Climate

We were there in late March and while most of the thermometers and my weather app were saying it was around 8 or 9 degrees most days the wind chill made it feel much lower (I had three layers, hat, scarf and gloves on when outside).  So I would recommend wrapping up warm.  Even in the summer months (June/July/August) they only reach low- or mid-teens, so it’s never really warm (not that the native Icelanders seem to notice).

It was also very windy while we were there, everywhere we visited in fact and very changeable (apparently there’s an Icelandic saying that if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and some more will be along) so be prepared, especially if you venture out into the wilderness.

The Hotel

We stayed at the Leifur Eiriksson hotel, directly opposite the Hallgrmskirkja (church, see below) on the main hill in Reykjavik.  It was nice, clean and had friendly staff, but the fittings were a little worn and there was a definite breeze coming through the windows in our room.

Breakfast was in a general seating area off reception and was basically self-help from toast, cereals, make-your-own waffles and continental-style meat, cheese, boiled eggs, etc.  There was free tea, coffee and hot chocolate from a machine all day (none in your room).

We were on the top floor of the main building (there are two, one across the street), which was a bit of a climb as there’s no lift.  You may also have to get used to the sulphur smell of the water (general to the city, not specifically the hotel).

There was free wifi, but I couldn’t get it down in reception, only on the third floor landing and (occasionally) standing in the right spot in our room.

It was a convenient location in terms of not being too far, nor too close to town centre, it was a bit climb up the hill to get back each night though.  Being opposite the Hallgrmskirkja made it very easy to find.

Reykjavik

The city seems to be almost separated into two parts, the main downtown area around the harbour and the rest as it spreads out into the suburbs.  Downtown is referred to as 101 due to the postcode and encompasses the bulk of the central shops, bars and restaurants.

It’s well worth a visit to the Hallgrimskirkja (the big church on the hill) and a ride up the tower, it gives you great views over the city and beyond.  The inside is also architecturally interesting, with a stark, almost geologic beauty.

There are various museums scattered across the city, but much centres around the harbour.  Down there you’ll find the dominating presence of the Harpa, the impressive concert and conference centre.  It’s a nice place to stop for a coffee and people watch, especially if there are events on.  There’s also a restaurant.

Also along the front is the Sun Voyager, a sculpture looking vaguely like a boat, made from stainless steel.  It’s quite impressive, and even more so given its location.

On one of the days we managed to hike out to the Perlan.  Largely it’s a hot water storage facility, but it has a glass dome with a viewing deck and also houses the Saga Museum.  Head up to the fourth floor cafe for snacks and the viewing platform, which gives commanding views over the surrounding area.  The fifth floor is a restaurant.

In the grounds is a fake version of the Strokkur geyser, though it wasn’t working when were there (only seems to operate certain months of the year and certain times of the day).

There are plenty of bars and cafes to hole up in if the weather turns or you just need a rest.

I can recommend the Kaffivagninn cafe on Grandagarður near the harbour (down the road from the Maritime Museum), especially on a quiet Sunday morning.  Coffee seemed to offer free refills and they had some slices of cake that looked very tempting.

The Northern Lights

One of the big attractions of visiting Iceland is the ability to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis).  They run nightly tours through the peak season (end of August through to April) and there are better months than others to visit if you want to increase your chances of seeing it.

To say it is elusive is an understatement, even on perfectly clear nights there are no guarantees (but the tour company does give you a free trip on subsequent nights until you do see it, or you go home).  We were lucky enough to see them, though only on the way back after travelling for an hour and standing in the cold for an hour.

Get ready for some late nights if you plan to do the tour (it didn’t start until 10 pm, we finally go back to our room at 2 am).

The Golden Circle

Probably the most popular tour is the Golden Circle Classic, which visits Þingvellir National Park (that weird P thing is a Th by the way), which is where the Althing met, the oldest existing parliament in the world, met starting back in 930 AD; then you’ll head to Gullfoss, a set of waterfalls, then the thermal park at Geysir (where the rest of us take the word geyser from).  If you do the full day tour you’ll also visit a couple of other smaller locations, but you get the main ones on the half-day tour too (and that doesn’t start at 8am).

Þingvellir is interesting, aside from the history, as it sits on a small tectonic plate between the giant US and Eurasian plates, so you can see the joins between continents.  It’s also a stunning location.

Gullfoss means Golden Falls and is a 105-foot double cascade.  You can see it on two levels and walk right to the side of the falls.  It was bitterly cold when we were there, and we were very thankful for the visitor centre.

I’ve seen thermal parks before, so steaming pools of water are perhaps a bit less impressive to me, but the spouting Strokkur geyser, which throws water 60-100 feet in the air every 5-7 minutes, is the obvious draw.

In between and at each location you’ll also be surrounded by some stunning scenery, so it’s not just a mad dash to visit the individual locations.  The tour guide was interesting and informative and there were good facilities at each location.

There are a couple of tour companies, though they’re basically the same in price from what I remember.  We went with Iceland Excursions (Gray Line).

The Blue Lagoon

Another feature Iceland is famous for is its hot springs.  You’ll find them all over the island, and most towns and cities seem to have local pools, but the biggest are probably those at the Blue Lagoon, a kind of hot springs spa centre.

The pools are kept at 40 degrees (Celsius) and you can hire towels and robes.  You can stay as long as you wish and swim around the vast main pool, applying silica mud, which is supposed to be good for the skin, should you wish.

They also have a gift shop, where you can buy beauty products, they offer things like massages and there’s both a cafe and restaurant on site too (we ate in the restaurant, see below).

The Blue Lagoon is actually closer to the airport, and many people, like us, took a trip there on the way home, coming from Reykjavik and spending a few hours there before continuing on to the airport.  It’s a nice relaxing way to spend you last day (and they can store your luggage, so no need to worry about that).

Eating Out

I can only comment on the places we did eat at, and we stayed fairly mainstream as we were only there a short time and aren’t particularly fond of seafood (which seems to be the main specialty, fishing being the largest industry on the island).  I think the Icelandic specialties are seared sheep’s head, putrefied shark, a flat bread called rúgbrauð which was very dense and skyr, which is a yogurt-like soft cheese.  A number of places also offered dishes based on puffin and whale.

We arrived early evening and after much strolling around, we ended up at Hereford on Laugarvegur.  As the name suggests, it’s a steak joint primarily.  You fill your order in on little cards (picking the numbers from the menu) rather than dictating it to the waiter.

Good quality steak and chips, nothing too fancy.  It wasn’t cheap, but certainly not extortionate.

A quick note on alcoholic drinks.  The sales tax is based on the percentage of alcohol and goes up to 90% on spirits like vodka.  If you’re fond of spirits, an article I saw recommended buying it duty-free at the airport after you land.

I can recommend a pint of Viking, we weren’t too bothered by Gull though.

We also managed a burger a American Style on Tryggvagata, which is a burger chain, you order from a board over the counter (or menu) and pay, then get given a ticket with a number and they cook your food and bring it to your table.  Good burgers at good prices.

We had an Italian one night but I can’t remember the name of it, I think it was on Laugarvegur (but it could have been Hverfisgata).  It was fairly good grub, typically Italian.

One day we grabbed a hot dog from Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which is a hot dog stand on corner of Tryggvagata and Posthusstreti. Even Bill Clinton managed to stop by here when he visited.  I think a dog with the works was about 320 Isk.  They were pretty good, but small enough you may want two.

Another restaurant we tried was Icelandic Fish and Chips on Geirsgata, which is an ‘organic bistro’ according to the sign.  They basically serve the catch of the day, which lightly fried quarters of baked potatoes (healthier) which a range of sauces based on skyr, rather than fattening mayonnaise.

You pick up a menu, find a table, select what you want, head up to the counter to order, pick up your own glasses and cutlery, then it gets delivered.  It’s a little hippy, but it’s pleasant and the food was good.

We also ate at LAVA, the restaurant at the Blue Lagoon, which was very nice.  Not the cheapest, but a nice surrounding and unique design (they have an exposed lava wall, I doubt many restaurants can say that).  The menu was fairly standard, but the food very good.

Final Thoughts

I really liked Iceland, despite the weather.  I’d have liked to have got out into the wilderness a bit more, maybe done a few walks, perhaps tried a dive/snorkel over the fissure at Silfra, but we managed to get a fair bit in and the people we met were all very nice, organisation on all the tours was very good and it was an attractive country with a stark beauty reminiscent of a number of places, such as the English moors, the Scottish Highlands and parts of New Zealand.

If you’re fond of the outdoors, of wild landscapes, Nordic history or, as one of our guides suggested, just want to get away from the stifling temperatures of more southern climates, Iceland is a great place to visit.