The City
Although small for a metropolis, compared with Iceland's other built-up areas, Reykjavik is a throbbing urban development. If you're planning to visit some of the country's more remote and isolated regions, you should make the most of the atmosphere generated by this bustling port, with its buzzing nightlife and highbrow museums. The collections in the centrally located National Museum and Arni Magnusson Manuscript , for example, offer a fine introduction to Iceland's stirring past, while outdoors, in the streets and parks you'll find the outstanding work of sculptors Asmundur Sveinsson and Einar Jonsson , as well as in two permanent exhibitions - indeed, contemporary art has a high profile in a whole host of art shops and galleries. And yet even with all of this around you, you can never forget that you're bang in the middle of the North Atlantic, with your nearest neighbours being Greenland and the North Pole - a remoteness that is at the core of Reykjavik's appeal. The city centre is split roughly into two halves by the brilliant waters of the large, naturally occurring pond, Tjornin . To the north and west of this lie, respectively, the busy fishing harbour , full of modern hi-tech trawlers and Iceland's now decomissioned whaling fleet, and Vesturbaer , the city's oldest district, dating back in parts to the Settlement, now largely given over to administration, eating, drinking and entertainment. It's also one of the city's most likeable and picturesque quarters, comprising a spread of well-to-do residential streets, at odds with the concrete apartment blocks on the eastern outskirts of the city. Another gaggle of bars and restaurants are located on Austurstraeti and Hafnarstraeti - the location of the Icelandic parliament and the main post office, studded with multicoloured rooves and facades, reaching up the hill that begins at Tjornin's western edge. East of the pond, things become altogether more commercial, as the gently sloping main drag, Laugavegur, the city's main shopping street, packed with glitzy designer boutiques and the location for most of the city's bars, restaurants, shops and cinemas, leads towards the bus terminal , Hlemmur, which marks the city's edge.
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