The unexpected exotic. Eleven times in Iceland, where silence becomes a wonder

Travelling to Iceland eleven times over just over twenty years may be a sign of a troubled mind or, conversely, a sign of a peaceful, balanced mind – thanks in part to those frequent trips to Iceland. We will never know, but I believe the latter applies to me—or so I tell myself as, for the eleventh time in my life, I board the Icelandair flight from Malpensa. People say it is expensive and that one must be privileged; indeed, it does cost quite a lot (see below), yet still less than a year’s worth of sessions with a therapist or medication with dubious effects. And so.

Incidentally, privilege is selective, and this selectivity is the admitted or unadmitted secret of every traveller – indeed, of every sentient being. This is why nobody – and I repeat, nobody – returns from Iceland disappointed, unless it’s pouring with rain the whole time (which can happen) or unless the Arctic wind makes it impossible to leave the house or the car (which happens often): because what we truly desire is to be free from other human beings for a short to medium period of time, and Iceland offers its visitors this priceless service. ‘Mongolia too,’ one might object. True, but unlike Mongolia (and Kamchatka, Mauritania, and so on), Iceland is a country of great wealth, excellent organisation, a rich and widespread culture, and outstanding services. You may not see other human beings, but you can enjoy and make the most of (paying a hefty price, of course) the dedication and hard work of the people who, over the decades, have built the roads, airports, the electricity grid, the sewers, the waterworks and the hotels – in short, who have civilised this hostile island, virtually treeless, bitterly cold, windy, dark for six months of the year, and largely deserted (with an area the size of northern Italy and a population the size of the city of Florence).

Larkin would have liked Iceland (“the continual brush with people exhausts me”); Virginia Woolf would have liked it too, as in her correspondence with Vita Sackville-West she constantly complains about how much time she has to waste on mundane tasks and small talk; as for Kafka, let’s not even go there (“My prison cell: my fortress”). In short, it would have appealed to – and does appeal to – all those endowed with an intense spiritual life but lacking a vocation for adventure. You have the exoticism, but without the hassle of having to adapt to Middle Eastern, Eastern or Maghreb customs, manners, food and surroundings – not to mention all those insects. Even at the gate at Malpensa, everyone is well-mannered; they all speak three languages; even the babies cry softly so as not to disturb anyone (the only high-pitched voices in the breakfast room of the hotel in Reykjavík will be those of a group of extremely well-behaved people from Catania, yet apparently incapable of speaking in a normal tone of voice, even when uttering simple phrases such as ‘This is definitely mulberry jam’)Icelandair matches the good manners of its passengers: a ten-word welcome, very few announcements during the flight, whereas last week on an Italian low-cost airline I had to endure Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony played on a Bontempi keyboard as we took off, followed by a barrage of jingles and offers of food and drink, watches, scratch cards, and fundraising for the wretched of the earth; and on arrival, the applause and the usual hint of a scuffle as people jostled to be the first off the plane. To the North – one must go North.

Once you land at Keflavík, you will get the distinct impression that the task of keeping the Icelandic machine running, now that modernity and the aforementioned dedication of the Icelanders have provided it with every comfort, has been entrusted to non-Icelanders who either live here permanently or, more often, come to Iceland for three months in the summer and, in exchange for an experience that is still quite rare (Iceland!) and good money, do the jobs that Icelanders don’t want to or don’t have time to do: At the Hertz desk there is Abdullah from India; the swimming pool attendant in Holmavík is a middle-aged Swiss man with a bewildered look on his face; the hotel staff in Drangsnes consist of three Frenchmen who seem to have come here together, a Colombian who speaks Italian well because he lived in Monza for years, and another couple of attendants whose appearance is decidedly non-Icelandic. From the hotel I had booked near Reykholt, a young man with a Polish name sent me a text message, and upon arrival I was greeted by a group of Eastern European young men who were almost annoyingly cool, as well as perfectly fluent in English. The Icelanders must be in their offices, or out in the countryside, or off in the Maldives, while their hotels and restaurants rake in the takings. If you encounter Icelanders at all, it is invariably in the hot-water pools found in every village across the country – pale, portly and a bit flabby, and always courteous, even if they are not particularly curious about you or your Mediterranean features. This discretion, however, is part of the appeal.

You used to take the bus from Keflavík to Reykjavík, get off there and walk to the hotel – or take a taxi – Over the years, however, hotels in Reykjavík have become exorbitantly expensive without a corresponding improvement in quality (a double room at the Hotel Borg—a lovely four-star hotel in the city centre—without breakfast costs 390 euros, and it is already early September, with the bulk of tourists having left). Therefore, the most advisable option—a recommendation I regularly extend to friends and now to you—is to stay outside the city. Rent a car at the airport (an off-roader is unnecessary—the roads are mostly paved; a sturdy 4x4 or even a standard Toyota will suffice if you do not plan to leave the main routes), you head towards Reykjavík but stop before you reach it, or in the vicinity, or (my advice) drive past it and head north, where certain farms have been converted into bar-restaurant-hotels, usually with a hot spring and sauna included in the price. For those undaunted by an additional hundred kilometres, the Varmaland Hotel, located north-east of Borgarnes, is a strong option: basic yet modern, neat and well-maintained, with excellent breakfasts served in a fourth-floor dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the valley, and two large hot-water pools in the courtyard that are almost always deserted because few travellers know they exist. A little further north still, but on Route 1 which circles the island, the Hraunsnef Country Hotel even has sheep and horses, and the scent of sulphur mingles with that of manure to create a very distinctive aroma.

(But since the subject has come up, it is advisable to address the 'dear Iceland' issue promptly—something we need to agree on while keeping our priorities clear. Flights are reasonably priced, around 500 euros return; food costs as much as in any Scandinavian country, and, like in any Scandinavian country, it isn’t exactly a feast of variety, but visitors do not travel to Iceland for its cuisine—so tuck into the heavenly salmon and cod— “Fish of the day today is cod”: but it’s ALWAYS cod! – and be generous with the high-fat sauces. The sky-high costs and the indignant outcries are always linked to accommodation, partly because there are few hotels and holiday lets, and they’re of medium-to-low quality compared to the rest of Europe, and partly because they take advantage of you. Personally, I would prefer to remain at home rather than travel in a campervan with its fold-away table and the toilet next to the bed, but it is one of those situations where you might seriously consider it, given the time: depart from Italy, take the motorway to Hirtshals, Denmark, disembarking after two or three days at Seyðisfjörður on Iceland’s east coast, and from there enjoying the calculation of how many euros you’ve saved. But it does take time, and a willingness to live alongside others inside a smelly box, sleeping in car parks).

There are no railways in Iceland, primarily because the population was once sedentary; individuals were born in Skagaströnd and died in Skagaströnd, so constructing a station there would have been impractical. Today, railways are considered unnecessary due to the widespread use of cars and domestic flights. Domestic flights are recommended: they save time and are reasonably priced—within the context of Iceland’s exorbitant prices. It is even possible to walk to Reykjavík Airport, board a flight, and, three-quarters of an hour later, land at a small airport on the other side of the country (Aldo Busi, Altri abusi, Milan, Mondadori 1989, p. 24: “Reykjavík is one of those (charming) little towns where, as soon as you set foot there, you ask yourself: ‘What now?’”; Reykjavík, he says: let alone Egilsstaðir). After that, once you have explored the area – and every part of Iceland is memorable; there is not a single stone in Iceland that is not, at least for this enthusiast – you can even return to Reykjavík by car or by bus. Buses are available; they are slow but reliable, and their main drawback is that they remove the freedom to veer off the main road. They also eliminate the pleasure of driving, which in Iceland is immense—perhaps greater than anything one might experience elsewhere behind the wheel. Yet the blessing, as I was saying, lies in the absence of a railway network. Because above all, this – this lack of tracks, sleepers and, above all, stations with cafés, newsagents and all the clutter, that is to say the bustling life that a train brings with it – has ensured that the Icelandic landscape remains not ‘wild’ – that would be too strong a word – but ‘untamed’, yes, or rather, to use an adjective that often springs to mind when travelling in Iceland, ‘prìstino’ in the sense of unspoilt, untouched by human hands: the plain sloping down towards the ocean, the stony, treeless hills, the moss on the rocks, the glaciers in the distance, and above it all, a vast sky.

Perhaps part of Iceland’s charm, and the genuine emotion it evokes in those who traverse this landscape – which is, how else to put it? – austere, in the sense that it prompts serious and profound reflections on people and the important things in life; a landscape that dispels the ephemeral and calls us back to the essential – perhaps it all depends on the perception that the environment here is so hostile, and one is so far removed from everything, that the slightest thing would be enough to cause civilised life to vanish suddenly – or, if not suddenly, within a few years – and for us to return to that natural life squared, cubed, which was, after all, simply life for dozens of generations of Icelanders until… Until when? Until automation? Until the Second World War? Until the internet? Anyone planning a trip to Iceland absolutely must read Laxness’s Independent People, which memorably recounts the gruelling lives of Icelandic farmers a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago, and, if there is time, also take a look at the reports by European writers who visited in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (almost everything can be found on archive.org), who were stunned by the poverty, ignorance, living in close quarters with livestock, and the stench of unwashed bodies (not least because bathing in the stream was not an option). Here is the delicate Anglican clergyman Sabine Baring-Gould: “Rotting fish, offal and all manner of filth are thrown about everywhere, for the rain to wash them away or for passers-by to trample them into the ground […]. The Icelanders seem to lack a sense of smell, and perhaps that is just as well, since there is no opportunity here to satisfy that sense, whilst there is no shortage of opportunities to mortify it’ (Iceland: its Scenes and Sagas, London, Smith Elder and Co., 1863). This, on the other hand, is the great, omniscient Richard Burton: “Art in Iceland simply does not exist and, judging by the small museum in Reykjavík, has always been as crude as that of Central Africa. In Reykjavík there is only one painter, whose career has been limited by the impossibility of training in sun-kissed lands. Sculptors and architects have no place here. Even music and dance […] have, with the exception of Reykjavík, scarcely progressed beyond the stage ranging from the savage to the barbaric’ (Ultima Thule or A Summer in Iceland, Edinburgh, Nimmo 1875).

Now, things are changing. Even the Franchetti-Sonnino report, read today, does not seem to tell the whole truth about Sicily. But a piece of the truth, let’s admit it, it does. Today’s Iceland, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to the Iceland seen by Burton, and perhaps not even to the one seen by our grandparents – those few who had the money and the time to go there. In between, between then and now, there has been ‘Téchne’. Aeroplanes, civil engineering, materials science, plastics, tarmac roads, electronics, and geothermal energy that produces green energy practically for free. With all this, given a population of fewer than 400,000 spread over a territory of just over 100,000 square kilometres – and a stunning landscape that acts as a magnet for high-spending tourists – it was difficult to remain poor, unattractive (Burton again: ‘As a rule, then, the Icelandic face can by no means be called handsome’), uneducated and smelly. Today, Iceland boasts a concentration of IT companies that would put Silicon Valley to shame; it exports aluminium and fish worth nearly three billion dollars; tourists arrive in droves, in battalions (2.3 million in 2025, six times the local population); and, above all for this reason, the demand for skilled foreign workers (that is to say, to begin with, English speakers). As was once typical in affluent societies, where the middle classes pursued cultural enrichment, Icelanders read books, many write them, and nearly everyone plays an instrument; some sing and perform, and rather than appearing in the Italian charts—which are widely consumed—they enter the highly competitive Anglo-American ones: Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, Emiliana Torrini. There are even a few well-regarded festival films.

So, what now? Would you hand over this blend of unspoilt nature and civilisation, of tradition and modernity, of rural virtues and international ambition to the European Union? Two Sundays ago there was a referendum organised by the government, which was much talked about: Icelanders were asked whether or not they wanted talks to be reopened regarding Iceland’s possible future accession to the European Union. Let me repeat: this was not a referendum on ‘whether or not to join the European Union and find ourselves alongside – say – Malta and Bulgaria’, but on whether to resume talks with Brussels, after negotiations had been suspended in 2013. Just talks. The ‘no’ vote won, by a narrow margin: 52.8 per cent to 47.2 per cent, meaning EU accession has been postponed for at least a couple of generations. Whose fault (or merit) is that? Reporting on the referendum results, Politico ran the headline ‘The Real Reason Iceland Rejected the EU: ‘It’s the Fish, Stupid’, in the sense that Icelanders feared that joining the EU would bring with it disadvantages in fishing quotas, and perhaps new ‘Cod Wars’ like the violent, non-metaphorical ones that Iceland fought and won against the United Kingdom between the 1950s and the 1970s. This may well have been a factor: the manoeuvring of the powerful fishing industry lobby (which, however, employs a relatively small – and, incidentally, declining – number of workers: between three and four thousand). But perhaps it is worth broadening our perspective a little.

A few days ago, following Dolly Parton’s death, Caitlin Flanagan—who is widely regarded as one of the sharpest observers of American culture—posted a tweet about the country music icon’s passing that drew a great deal of understandable criticism (the tweet was “poorly written,” and she later offered a half-hearted apology): “When J.D. Vance wrote American Elegy, it was all over by then. I cannot understand why he celebrated those cruel, drug-addicted and uneducated people’. All of this, in fact, represents the wholesome, humble, generous popular culture that Dolly Parton embodied, and which, according to Flanagan, had died with her generation or the one immediately following it. ‘Uneducated’ is very reminiscent of the ‘basket of deplorables’ that helped Hillary Clinton lose the election, as well as the jibes about Farage’s constituency and the like, and now Bonaccini’s gaffe too.

However, the Icelandic case is somewhat different. They are a highly educated people, even in the provinces; they have travelled, they read, and they speak English better than I do. During conversations with Icelanders in rural areas (my eleventh trip, for the record, was spent mainly travelling along the south-north-south axis, from Keflavík to Drangsnes and back), it became clear that they did not dwell much on fishing quotas; instead, they feared a loss of independence (Laxness’s Independent People is so titled for good reason: these are people accustomed to thinking of themselves as islanders, and to fending for themselves) and, above all, that they care deeply about nature – that is, the preservation of the Icelandic landscape (“Do you know that dirt track that winds round the fjord, just outside the village? Well, we want it to stay a dirt track”). Of course, there was nothing in the ‘Yes’ campaign advocating dialogue with Europe that implied the end of independence or the destruction of the landscape – quite the contrary; and the ‘No’ campaign was also funded by interest groups that profit – not so much from fishing as from tourism and property speculation – which is transforming, or rather has already transformed, the centre of Reykjavík into the duty-free zone of a mid-tier airport (ten years ago it brought to mind Via Medail in Bardonecchia; now it brings to mind… Yes, a duty-free shop – that’s the most apt comparison), and is filling the outskirts with blocks of flats that are neither ugly nor beautiful, but above all expensive. Yet ‘surrendering sovereignty’ is not a programme likely to appeal to a country that is, all things considered, quite content with itself, and the European Union has ended up being identified by many – by a narrow majority, in this case – as one of those forces that are breaking the continuity with a way of life to which people are attached, and which they are reluctant to give up: the Iceland of yesteryear. Rightly so? Or wrongly? “The debate,” wrote the editor of Grapevine Reykjavík, the English-language weekly that everyone reads, “has rarely concerned the specific issue at hand. Instead, it has degenerated into a referendum on identity, fear, irrelevant grievances and emotionalism.” Except that this is the very nature of referendums, not their degeneration.

Yet what does any of this really matter to the high-spending tourist or the die-hard fan already planning their twelfth trip to Iceland? Nothing. The die-hard Icelandophile does not think in terms of human generations but of geological eras; upon landing at Keflavík International Airport, they adopt a Goethean state of mind: für ewig. Europe or no Europe, conservation or progress – what matters is that the island remains unchanged in its four fundamental elements: the sea, the mountains, the lava fields, the glaciers; and that the bulk of humanity remains concentrated in Reykjavík, or in the outpost of Akureyri, the capital of the north-east (twenty thousand inhabitants – not exactly Tokyo), so that across the country’s remaining one hundred thousand square kilometres, people are as rare as four-leaf clovers. What matters is still having the western fjords deserted on any given weekday morning, and the sheep and horses – and sometimes even reindeer – staring at you and ignoring you from the roadside. Above all, the road itself—the possibility of driving from one end of the island to the other without encountering anything on the horizon for kilometres other than dark earth, grass and sky, and the occasional tiny human structure, battered by rain and wind.

The final poem in Seamus Heaney’s "The Spirit Level" is entitled "Postscriptum" and is about Ireland, the region south of Galway, not Iceland. However, all one needs to do is change the place names in the second line, and later on, replace the swans with ducks (my translation):