This post is mostly about cinnamon buns. As far as I can tell, cinnamon buns ought to be the main export of Iceland, since that is what the country does best, and they do many things very well.
I was recently in Iceland on my honeymoon with my wife Cameron, who planned the entire thing from booking the flight to booking the car to booking all the hotel room, and looking up the best place to buy cinnamon buns in Reykjavik. I think my major contribution was going to the bank and extending our credit limit so she could do all of that at the same time. It was easy. Iceland is very big on tourism these days, since their major export otherwise is fish and volcano debris. IcelandAir is one of the nicest planes I've ever been on, and their in-flight entertainment choices are top notch.
The only "city" in Iceland is Reykjavik, home of Braud, a small (like everything in Iceland) bakery franchise at which one can find the best, fluffiest, gooiest, crispiest, butteriest cinnamon buns in the world, if not the universe, as well as a healthy assortment of tasty seafood restaurants, and also a Penis Museum. More on that later. We spent our first and last days in Iceland in Reykjavik, and the intervening week in the countryside, exploring and photographing the most stunning landmarks and natural wonders the country had to offer.
These include Dingvellir, also pronounced "Thingvellir," because the letter in the beginning of the word is sound at the beginning of the word "the," which everyone pronounces as "duh" unless they're very careful. Dingvellir is the spot of the first Western parliament, and also the spot where the European and American tectonic plates are splitting apart. In real life, that looks like two cliffs with a path in the middle that has to constantly be repaired because giant sinkholes keep opening up in it. We also saw Gullfoss (a big windy waterfall), Seljalandsfoss (a waterfall you can walk behind), Skogafoss (a waterfall with deeply magical-looking rainbows flying out of it), and Svartifoss, (a waterfall that looks like a spooky pipe organ), a glacier named Vatnajokull, Jokulsarlon and Reynisfjara, two black sand beaches, and a few proper Icelandic geysirs.
Fun fact: "geysir" is only one of about a dozen Icelandic words to make it into common English. Others include blunder, berserk, ransack, slaughter, heathen, , because Iceland was once full of Vikings, but also words like fellow, happy, husband, and troll. Trolls got my attention. Iceland officially believes in elves and trolls, and has laws against developing elvish habitats. For my part, during drives and drink stops, I found myself sketching and lavishly detailing pictures of the most gross and obscene trolls I could imagine. It was very fun.
My last days in Iceland were marred by an inflamation of my left eye caused by a scratched cornea. I couldn't see a thing out of it, and could barely stand sunlight. That, plus the fact that it was Easter Sunday ruled out the Penis Museum, which I had desperately wanted to go to, but not at the expense of breaking their window and possibly getting glass in my other, working eye. According to Cameron, we visited a mineral lake and a bevy of geothermal pools instead, but mostly I saw the inside of the rental car and the spout of my eyedrops. I also ate another cinnamon bun. You don't need eyes to taste heaven.
Nevertheless, on the trip home, I managed to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel on the little airplane TV.
For pictures, take a look at my wife's instagram and my instagram too, for photos. We took some really good ones on a very expensive camera, but you don't get to see those. Much too good for the internet.