We already got to know Iceland’ s volcanoes and the country’s outdoor bathing culture. During road construction work, we happened to get another interesting insight.
Iceland has so much geothermal energy that even the sidewalks in Reykjavik are heated with it. In winter, this saves the need for gritting.
Iceland – warm and cold
While the sidewalks of the capital city have been given underfloor heating so that you can get from A to B on warm feet in the long, cold winter, the little ones are left outside the door. In Iceland, it is common to leave a stroller and child outside the door of a restaurant. For rainy weather there are smart rain covers. Some cafés even offer parking spaces for strollers. While the parents sit in the warm, the offspring slumber in the fresh air.
Wondrous Iceland Stories
Magical, mystical, whimsical. On our trip through Iceland, we experienced overwhelming nature, enjoyed the benefits of geothermal energy and tasted many an outlandish dish or of the beer that was only legalized in 1989. In Iceland there are leader sheep, but under no circumstances ponies. Instead, the descendants of the Vikings today have heated sidewalks, still seething volcanoes and a lot of creativity, which in the long dark months is the best recipe against the onset of winter depression. Other ‘Wait a Minute!’ episodes are about hairy beer bottles, petrified trolls and wishing stones. Fermented, cruelly stinking Greenland shark contrasts with rye bread baked in hot earth. The whales that regularly appear off Húsavík are a popular photo motif during whale watching.
