[This essay was published in Icelandic in Morgunblaðið on November 08, 2025. See screenshot below.]
When the pantheon of Europe’s great cities is invoked, the same gods are named: Paris and Rome, London, Vienna and Prague, Berlin. Reykjavík rarely enters the prayer, waiting outside the temple doors, politely forgotten. So much the better, for Reykjavík may well be Europe’s best-kept secret, a city whose splendour lies not in marble façades or imperial boulevards but in a rarer currency: light, air, sea, and mountain. Cradled by Faxaflói and watched over by Esja, it is endowed with a setting nonpareil.
Here the golden hour can stretch across half a night, pouring hues of liquid gold and rose over roofs and water. The sub-Arctic light that drenches this city possesses an ethereal transparency, as though the air itself were a lens of ice and fire. In winter, when daylight seems a visitor, the brief flare of sun turns the world to theatre. Reykjavík lives by such mercurial gifts, which no museum, however vast, can hoard.
But this northernmost capital is not without blemish. The spread of drab concrete has dulled its charm, and the newer sprawl feels uninspired, lacking in aesthetic sensibility. Still, these are surface wounds, though not insignificant ones; this city deserves better than crude building and careless expansion. That Reykjavík remains as lovely as it is, despite the city administration’s vandalism, borders on the miraculous. Yet beneath it all, the city breathes freely, blessed with air of mythic purity. Its water is the finest anywhere, and what the country yields in milk and dairy is unmatched. Even its vegetable produce, grown in defiance of latitude, is world class.
The outdoors here is not a weekend luxury but a way of life: easy access to mountains, parks, and walking trails, all the offerings of a metropolis without its ailments. Reykjavík still keeps a small-town scale where people recognise one another, where a walk across town feels like a string of familiar nods.
Despite these blessings, the current generation of Reykvíkingar seem unimpressed. To be sure, Icelanders cherish their landscape and understand its worth; they hike, bike, and walk with reverence. Still, the unease manifests, the itch to be elsewhere, the flight to noise. Paris, Prague, and Rome seduce their imagination. As does a romp in Tenerife. On a whim they fly off for another selfie, blind to the benisons they left behind.
There was a time when travel enlarged the mind; now it fills a social media feed. The capacity to stay put has been relinquished. The modern mind, anxious and agitated, cannot abide stillness or the quiet communion that comes with familiar surroundings. It confuses movement with meaning and escape with renewal. Were I born in Reykjavík, I would anchor myself here and never stir unless truly compelled. What greater horizon could one need than Esja herself?
In his physics lectures, Professor Walter Lewin of MIT would point out that most people look at a rainbow but few see it. The difference, he said, is crucial. To look is to register an object; to see is to apprehend its being, to feel its mystery. Seeing asks for attention and discernment; indeed, in Sanskrit, the very word for philosophy is darshana, meaning “seeing.”
The same may be said of Esja. Icelanders look at her daily, but few see her. They drive past, note the weather clinging to her slopes, and the encounter ends there. To behold Esja is to feel the power that shaped her. She holds the city in her gaze.
Many live in Reykjavík, but Reykjavík does not live in them. Reykjavík without Esja would not be Reykjavík. Esja was raised not by human ambition but by the hand of God. Some mornings she stands in shadow; at other times she drapes herself in a scarf of cloud and mist. With a dusting of snow she turns ethereal, and in low evening light she blushes. She stands sentinel over the city with her magisterial presence, reminding those who care to see that here, creation is unfolding.
Set beside this living grandeur, the old European capitals represent another plane of achievement: the long labour of civilisation made visible in stone. Their cathedrals and palaces speak of mastery and memory. But they are fixed achievements. Once you have admired a monument or crossed another piazza, the revelation is complete. How many more cafés does one need to conquer? Reykjavík, by contrast, draws its life force directly from nature, renewing with every hour and season. It is the city that never repeats itself.
If the locals occasionally forget their good fortune, it may be because familiarity dulls wonder. Step outside, breathe, fill a glass from the tap, walk until the pavements yield to moss and stone. Look up, and Esja will do the rest.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch – to my favourite city, Akureyri.
Morgunblaðið, November 08, 2025
