Hallgrímskirkja sits on Skólavörðuholt. Guðjón Samúelsson designed the church. It was consecrated in 1986. The tower is 74.5 metres of stepped concrete, a shape people read as basalt columns. A lift goes up. From the viewing level you look over corrugated roofs to the bay and, on a clear day, to Esja.
The harbour is working water. Trawlers, the old warehouses, the walk along Geirsgata. Whale-watch boats leave from here in season. Harpa sits at the eastern end of the old harbour. This page is not a marina brochure.
Tjörnin
The pond is older than the tourist map. City Hall sits on the north bank. In winter the ice takes skaters. In summer the ducks own it. The streets around it, Tjarnargata and the grid toward the lake, show the city's domestic scale. Low houses. Painted iron. Not a skyline.
Perlan as a viewpoint
Perlan is a cluster of hot-water tanks on Öskjuhlíð. The deck is a viewpoint. You do not have to treat it as a museum day. On a clear afternoon you see the bay, the airport peninsula and the mountain wall to the north.
Street grain
Laugavegur is the shopping street. The residential streets off it are more useful if you want to see how the city actually sits. Corner shops. Geothermal steam from a grate. A bus that is the real urban transport, because the capital is still a small city with weather.
This gazette does not keep a nightlife list. Bars open and close. The harbour, the pond and the tower do not.