{"id":4623,"date":"2012-09-01T19:11:39","date_gmt":"2012-09-01T23:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=4623"},"modified":"2018-08-03T21:30:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T01:30:14","slug":"saturday-september-1-2012-videyjarsund-to-klukkuvellir-by-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=4623","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, September 1, 2012 \u2014 Vi\u00f0eyjarsund to Klukkuvellir by Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rather gloomy and rainy day, but not too wet to pre\u00advent me from tak\u00ading a long urban hike of about thir\u00adty kilo\u00adme\u00adters that would give me a good idea of the lay\u00adout and neigh\u00adbour\u00adhoods of greater Reyk\u00adjavik. My start\u00ading point was the H\u00f6f\u00f0y, the old house where Ronald Rea\u00adgan and Mikhael Gor\u00adbochev held their famous sum\u00admit meet\u00ading in 1986. I first went north\u00adeast from the cen\u00adter to Sun\u00addah\u00f6fn Har\u00adbour. One end of the har\u00adbour has some huge cruise ships; the oth\u00ader is con\u00adtain\u00ader port, look\u00ading very mod\u00adern, but qui\u00adet these days. I then turned south through the Lau\u00adgardalur, a large park con\u00adtain\u00ading var\u00adi\u00adous urban amuse\u00adments, includ\u00ading a zoo and one of the most pop\u00adu\u00adlar geot\u00adher\u00admal pools.  South of this, I walked through a hous\u00ading project. It has the unmis\u00adtak\u00adable stamp of planned social hous\u00ading, but it is well-main\u00adtained and clean, if a lit\u00adtle dull. At any rate, it has a good enough mix of build\u00adings, easy access to reg\u00adu\u00adlar urban neigh\u00adbour\u00adhoods, and no hint of social degra\u00adda\u00adtion. Fur\u00adther south is the Kringlan shop\u00adping mall, a trans\u00adplant from the uni\u00adver\u00adsal indoor shop\u00adping mall cat\u00ada\u00adlogue that exhibits no notice\u00adable Ice\u00adlandic fea\u00adture. Pass\u00ading an inlet of the sea and a creek bed, I left the City of Reyk\u00adjavik and entered K\u00f3pavogur. With 30,000 peo\u00adple, this is Ice\u00adland\u2019s sec\u00adond largest \u201ccity\u201d. It rejoic\u00ades in the coun\u00adtry\u2019s tallest \u201csky\u00adscraper\u201d, a glass office tow\u00ader of twen\u00adty sto\u00adries. But most of K\u00f3pavogur is pleas\u00adant res\u00adi\u00adden\u00adtial streets with neat, not par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly fan\u00adcy hous\u00ades. There a small strip malls and stan\u00addard sub\u00adur\u00adban things. I\u2019ve seen no sign of the glob\u00adal chains like Mac\u00addon\u00adald\u2019s, Burg\u00ader King, or Ken\u00adtucky Fried Chick\u00aden*, and sub\u00adur\u00adban restau\u00adrants (often Thai food or Ice Cream par\u00adlours) are usu\u00adal\u00adly incor\u00adpo\u00adrat\u00aded into a larg\u00ader build\u00ading rather than iso\u00adlat\u00aded in their own park\u00ading lots. There is, how\u00adev\u00ader, a con\u00adstant pres\u00adence of Domi\u00adno\u2019s Piz\u00adza \u2014 but the piz\u00adza served lit\u00adtle resem\u00adbles the card\u00adboard stuff that chain is famous for. The piz\u00adza is adjust\u00aded to Ice\u00adlandic taste, with ingre\u00addi\u00adents that would baf\u00adfle a North American.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>

Haf\u00adnar\u00adfj\u00f6r\u00f0ur<\/p><\/div>\n

I con\u00adtin\u00adued through to Haf\u00adnafj\u00f6r\u00f0ur, which is actu\u00adal\u00adly old\u00ader than Reyk\u00adjavik, and pre\u00adserves some hand\u00adsome 19th cen\u00adtu\u00adry hous\u00ades. Hilly, and tight\u00adly con\u00adcen\u00adtrat\u00aded in a fine nat\u00adur\u00adal har\u00adbour that has been used since the Mid\u00addle Ages, it would prob\u00ada\u00adbly be my choice if I had to live in the Reyk\u00adjavik metro region. A half-hour bus ride would get me to the 101\u2019s book\u00adstores and night clubs, and I would find the tree-filled streets and well-craft\u00aded old hous\u00ades more to my taste. It is, how\u00adev\u00ader, hemmed in by lava beds, and it is these, south of Haf\u00adnafj\u00f6r\u00f0ur, that I reached the dark secret: Klukku\u00advel\u00adlir, a sub\u00adur\u00adban devel\u00adop\u00adment so soul-less and depress\u00ading that it could have been built by French nou\u00advelle vague<\/em> film-mak\u00aders of the 1960s as a set for a dystopi\u00adan sci\u00adence fic\u00adtion film. This thing was start\u00aded only sev\u00aden years ago and appears still under con\u00adstruc\u00adtion. Ster\u00adile apart\u00adment blocks and hous\u00ades are plunked geo\u00admet\u00adri\u00adcal\u00adly on a flat field of black lava. Lawns are graft\u00aded onto this life\u00adless soil, and don\u2019t look like they will take. The old\u00ader patch\u00ades are yel\u00adlow and dying. All the struc\u00adtures are white, clean-look\u00ading, and well-enough con\u00adstruct\u00aded, but they have a soul-crush\u00ading bland\u00adness and same\u00adness. Though sup\u00adpos\u00aded\u00adly inhab\u00adit\u00aded, I could see nobody in the wind\u00ading streets except a cou\u00adple of bored-look\u00ading kids. While cov\u00aders a huge area, I did not see a sin\u00adgle store of any kind, and absolute\u00adly noth\u00ading to do oth\u00ader than cow\u00ader in your home. The inhab\u00adi\u00adtants clear\u00adly have to dri\u00adve to near\u00adest shop\u00adping unless they wish to take a very long walk car\u00adry\u00ading parcels. I had no idea that any\u00adone was still mak\u00ading stuff like this. Only a robot or the sub\u00adject of a pre-frontal lobot\u00ado\u00admy could live there. Has\u00adn\u2019t any\u00adbody in Ice\u00adland heard of Jane Jacobs?<\/span><\/p>\n

The lay\u00adout of these towns forced me to return almost exact\u00adly by the same route, so I couldn\u00b4t real\u00adly add to the expe\u00adri\u00adence beyond this point.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

*I sub\u00adse\u00adquent\u00adly found three KFC\u2019s in Reykjavik<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rather gloomy and rainy day, but not too wet to pre\u00advent me from tak\u00ading a long urban hike of about thir\u00adty kilo\u00adme\u00adters that would give me a good idea of the lay\u00adout and neigh\u00adbour\u00adhoods of greater Reyk\u00adjavik. My starting \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,932],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ao-blog-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4623"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4791,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4623\/revisions\/4791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}