Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.03.2014, Blaðsíða 25
“Imagine France, the UK,
Germany, the Nordics
and Spain fighting for the
domination of Europe,
and meanwhile the threat
of climate change looms
overhead with the po-
tential to launch human-
ity into a never-ending
Icelandic December. And
zombies are coming over
from Greenland.”
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25 Travel The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 3 — 2014
In that tactical way someone poses a
question they already know the an-
swer to, the guy from New York asks
Jón if the ‘Game Of Thrones’ televi-
sion series was filmed in Iceland, be-
cause the book series it is based on
is called ‘A Song Of Fire And Ice’ and
we are, of course, in the ‘land of fire
and ice.’
Jón is more patient than me,
which is why he has the wherewithal
to lead tours and I have only the cyni-
cism and petty mockery to address
‘Game Of Thrones’ enthusiasts as
if I’m not one of them, as if I didn’t
binge on all three seasons in a single
weeklong stretch. (At 55 minutes an
episode, 10 episodes a season and
three seasons, I lost—or gained, de-
pending on how you look at it—27.5
hours of that week to the show.)
Game Of Thrones For
Dummies
A quick debriefing of what you’d ex-
perience in that 27.5 hours of fanta-
sy-drama TV is several noble fami-
lies vying for the ‘Iron Throne,’ with
which they can control the Seven
Kingdoms of Westeros. Westeros is
kind of like a continent. The threat
belying their threats and fights with
one another is the return of the ‘Long
Night’ (an endless winter), when the
‘White Walkers’ (like zombies), who
are supposed to be buried beneath
the icy tundra of the ‘Land Beyond
The Wall’ or ‘The North,’ get past the
1,126-kilometer-long, 213-metre-tall
structure of ice called ‘The Wall’ that
separates them from Westeros.
The ‘Land Beyond The Wall’ is
also the free range of the ‘Wildlings,’
burly nomads who want nothing to
do with the bureaucracy and politics
of the noble families and of Weste-
ros. However, this does not mean
they lack inter-conflicts that add
more murder to the already murder-
packed show. There is an average of
14 deaths per episode.
Imagine France, the UK, Germany,
the Nordics and Spain fighting for
the domination of Europe, and mean-
while the threat of climate change
looms overhead with the potential to
send humanity into a never-ending
Icelandic December. And zombies
are coming over from Greenland.
Winterfell And Fell And Fell
We’re driving through a snow-cov-
ered lava field while Jón pensively
mulls over New York’s question.
“Yes, well the books are very much
inspired by the sagas too. The land-
scapes are similar and they are writ-
ten from above, about one character
at a time.”
By this point we know New York
has read all five of the books (two
more will be published soon). He’s
flexing his G.O.T. muscles. We al-
ready nerded out on who our favou-
rite characters were and weeded out
instantly the ones on our tour who
had never actually seen ‘Game Of
Thrones.’ Our father-son duo would
later comment at several of the stops
that they will, “really need to check
out the show sometime.”
En route, Jón gives us a tour
that was about one-third Game Of
Thrones anecdotes, one-third troll-
banter and one-third Icelandic his-
tory and topography.
To his credit, his monologue (in
a very fun, non-monologue-y way)
is engaging, and learning about
the land and the Icelanders we are
amongst enriches the experience in
a way that’s different from touring a
Hollywood back lot and seeing where
Tom Cruise picked his nose. Also, the
scenery is way better, naturally.
The ‘Land Beyond The Wall’
All of the scenes in ‘Game Of Thrones’
that took place in ‘The Land Beyond
The Wall’ were filmed in Northern
Iceland. The wall itself was made with
computer-generated imagery (CGI)
on Svínafellsjökull Glacier in South-
west Iceland.
Our first stop in the ‘Land Beyond
The Wall’ is Goðafoss, which is drip-
ping with icicles and blowing frigid
mist from its downward contact with
the glacial river Skjálfandafljót. The
waterfall makes cameos in season
three and purportedly the upcoming
season four, though I can't remember
the context and, at this point, Jón
hasn’t whipped out his iPad to show
us the relevant scenes.
We stop for coffee and then carry
on to the Lake Mývatn area, where
those rocky, snow-covered tundra
landscapes of the Wildling’s camps
were filmed. Hverfell Crater—what
looks like a mountain cut in half and
gutted—backdrops it all and is easy
to spot in season three of the series.
We get out at one particular spot
to see where a kidnapped Jon Snow
(loveable, super-babe, illegitimate
son of one of the noble-family-heads)
has his sword taken flirtatiously by
the ‘Wildling’ Ygritte. We watch the
scene on the iPad and then drive to
the Grjótagjá cave where, ultimately,
Ygritte ran with the sword and she
and John shed their parkas and dis-
covered new ways to keep each oth-
er warm. It is a beautifully dark and
serene cave filled with clear, geo-
thermal water.
From there, we hop over to the
bubbling mud pits of Hverir, or what
Jón called, “the stinky pots.” The
steam coming off of these foul-smell-
ing earth pocks were used in filming
to create the sense of a blizzard. The
mixture of snow and the blowing gray
steam make it look as if the charac-
ters had been caught in a snowstorm.
From a car window you might find
yourself thinking that everywhere in
the landscape is footage featured in
the ‘Land Beyond The Wall,’ and my
love of the show definitely made it
come alive. I don’t think that’s totally
lost on those who haven’t seen the
show, but I did notice the son from
the father-son duo sleeping through
the first half of the trip.
Yule Lads in the ‘Land
Beyond The Wall’
We stop midday to eat at Vogafjós, a
café and guesthouse with attached
cow barn that you can take a stroll
through. The token Icelandic deli-
cacies are on order and everything
from the smoked trout to homemade
cheeses are deemed delicious. This is
capped with a trip to the Dimmubor-
gir lava fields to meet one of the Yule
Lads who pops out from a rocky out-
crop FROM OUT OF NOWHERE! It
is a cheesy performance in a sweet
way, and though it has nothing to do
with ‘Game Of Thrones,’ it was mem-
orable and I’m glad we stopped.
Getting in and out of a somewhat
cold car to waddle around in the
even colder outside world all day has
left our muscles tight and our bones
rigid. We end the day at the Mývatn
Nature Baths and I'll go ahead and
encourage any tour operator to end
whatever day-long package they of-
fer with a trip to hot pools. The car
could have broken down, someone
could have accidentally tumbled into
Goðafoss and one of the stinky pots
could have exploded from beneath
us and none of it would have mat-
tered as long as we got to unwind
under a full moon in vibrant blue wa-
ter. I even catch myself thinking that
winter could come with its damned-
est life in the ‘Land Beyond The Wall’
isn’t so rough after all.
Words
Alex Baumhardt
The guy from New York has seen all three seasons of the television series ‘Game Of
Thrones,’ “at least five times,” he says. He, a couple from Colorado, a father and son from
New Zealand and South Korea, Nanna (our Icelandic photographer) and I are in a van in
sub-arctic temps, north or west or both from the airport in Akureyri we flew into. We’re
being driven around by Jón Þór Benediktsson, ‘The Travelling Viking,’ on his tour of film
sites from the ‘Game Of Thrones.’
Nanna Dís