the journey
Ice Ice Baby The hottest place to go right now is somewhere very cold Stacy Gregg takes a tour of beauty in Iceland
A
s an author, it’s always perplexed me that Elizabeth Knox wrote her best-selling novel The Vintner’s Luck without ever actually setting foot in France. I find this baffling for two reasons. Firstly, I simply cannot fathom the idea of writing a book set in a country that I haven’t been to. Secondly – duh – it’s a tax deductible business expense. Elizabeth, go stay in a chateau and drink some wine for Pete’s sake! So far my books have taken me to Jordan, Spain, Italy and Russia. All of it, ahem-cough, for research purposes of course. And now, Iceland. Because I like to set my novels somewhere deeply obscure where no one else would ever think of going. “Oh Iceland!” My publisher at HarperCollins says when I stop by the London office for drinks. “How marvellous! Everyone is going there. It’s very hot right now.”
I blithely pretend that I’m being intentionally zeitgeisty rather than admitting that Iceland’s newfound popularity is a bit gutting. It is hot right now, it’s true. I blame the Americans – they’ve taken to offering a free stopover in Iceland with most European flights. And of course I blame Game of Thrones. Season seven was heavy on white walker scenes and all of those are shot in Iceland. Reykjavik is the new Hobbiton. Most of the Game of Thrones scenes are shot at Iceland’s national park, Thingvellir, which is about an hour to the south of Reykjavik. But really the film crew could have saved themselves the trip and just set up their cameras on the side of the road as they left the airport. Even the immediate landscape in that one hour bus ride between Keflavik International and downtown Reykjavik is incredible and otherwordly, a snowy moonscape of spectacular nothingness.
the hobson 32
