Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.05.2016, Síða 54

Sitting in the office on a rainy af-
ternoon after several days reeking
of the mundane, Hrefna and I take
a solemn oath. We will take hold of
our heartstrings, seek adventure,
and head into the uncharted ter-
ritory of the west. We will go to
Akranes, a city 45 km and a bus
ride away from Reykjavík!
Though not often seen as a
city of adventure, Akranes is, for
many, uncharted territory. As far
as we can tell, the Grapevine has
only done one other travel piece
on Akranes in over a decade, and I
have never heard a tourist speak of
a day, or even an afternoon, in this
oft-ignored city. In my year and a
half living in Iceland, I had only
seen signs for it. That is, until our
solemn resolution for adventure.
With a population of a little
over 6,600 people, Akranes is the
ninth-largest city in Iceland, and
by no means as remote as many
towns in the more northern re-
gions. Hrefna, Grapevine pho-
tographer and my beloved travel
buddy, even lived in Akranes for
ten years.
The lighthouse
whisperer
While Akranes is often disregard-
ed in tourism ventures, there’s a
quotidian mechanical beauty to
it, with its pastel-painted smoke-
stacks, endless rows of pipes, and
boats bobbing up and down in
the harbour. Compared to tour-
ist hotspots in the rest of Iceland,
Akranes is an understated kind of
pretty. Rather than marvelling at
chunks of glacier, deep canyons,
or crazy rock formations, we find
ourselves driving around, check-
ing out the city’s houses, factories,
and people.
If we had more time, we would
have stopped at the golden sand
beach Langisandur and Akranes’s
museum centre, which houses the
Akranes Folk Museum, the Icelan-
dic Sports Museum and the Min-
eral Kingdom. But, alas, we had an
important appointment to make:
we have to pick up a renowned
Akranes native, lighthouse-re-
pairer Hilmar Sigvaldason.
Though he made an acting de-
but in ‘The Secret Life of Walter
Mitty’, Hilmar is best known for
his efforts to renovate and sustain
Akranesviti, a large lighthouse
perched on the coast of Akranes.
Though it’s no longer a function-
ing lighthouse, it sits next to a
smaller, still-in-use lighthouse
that isn’t open to the public.
“Akranesviti is like my baby,”
Hilmar proudly declares, as we
step into the lighthouse’s lobby,
which is filled with paintings,
logbooks, maps, and souvenirs.
He points to an artistic rendering
done by a local radio station, in
which the small lighthouse poses
like a bodybuilder, and the bigger
lighthouse squeals like a small
child in Hilmar’s arms.
Hilmar seems proud of his
parenting skills, the ways he’s
cultivated a larger, more exten-
sive interest in the once-decrepit
lighthouse. “People used to drink
and do drugs in the lighthouse,”
(More Than) Drive-
Through Towns Pt. 2
Akranes:
That Elf-Blue Sky
Words REBECCA CONWAY
Photos HREFNA BJÖRG GYLFADÓTTIR
he says, “but then I decided to ap-
ply for funding and fix it up.”
A beacon for
art and music
Hilmar’s ardour for the lighthouse
fell into place alongside his other
interests, among them music.
He notes that before his interest
in the lighthouse, he mostly just
listened to bands like Pink Floyd.
But once he discovered the light-
house’s nice acoustics, he started
looking for and listening to other
artists, especially local ones, in-
viting them to play and record in
Akranesviti.
On top of concerts and record-
ing sessions, the lighthouse also
incorporates a series of art exhibi-
tions into its three levels. As you
climb the lighthouse, the exhibi-
tion circles the interior, inviting
you to examine the work instead
of strolling past. We move up each
of the floors, finally climbing
through a hatch to a deck wrapped
around the tip of the lighthouse.
The view is stunning—on one
side lie the colours and sprawl
of modern-day Akranes, and on
the other, a sweeping view of the
ocean and the nearby mountain of
Akrafjall. It’s windy and cold, but a
poem on the side of the lighthouse
keeps me outside for a few extra
minutes. As translated by Bernard
Scudder, the poem reads:
Don’t I keep telling you
To go easy
With the pastels
It could be considered
Overdone
Especially if
The moon and the mountain
Are in the frame
I mean
Who do you reckon would believe
Those theatre-pink shadows
That elf-blue sky?
Most striking, especially as I
type it out, is the poem’s lack of
punctuation. It fits the common
perception of the city perfectly:
Akranes is, for many, a punctua-
tion mark between Reykjavík and
the places beyond. Very few people
stop, and very few people want
to stop; after all, it’s much easier
to turn right towards Borgar-
nes after the Hvalfjörður tunnel
and avoid it entirely. But, just as
the poem culminates in a ques-
tion mark, so does our adventure.
We leave with a budding curios-
ity about what other treasures
the city holds; wondering to what
other unknown places Akranes’s
rusty industrial pipes could lead.
SHARE: gpv.is/akran
Höfðabakki 9 - 110 Reykjavík - www.mimir.is - Tel: 580 1800
Höfðabakki 9 Entrance to
Mímir-símenntun
Höfðabakki 9, 110 Reykjavík
Bus line no. 6 from city centre and
bus line no. 12 from Breiðholt
Öldugata 23, 101 Reykjavík
Vesturlandsvegur
Learn Icelandic this summer
Location: Öldugata 23, 101 Reykjavík
Registration:
www.mimir.is
or at the office at
Höfðabakki 9, 110 Reykjavík
Morning and evening classes in July and August
Level 1-3 and online course level 4
Distance
from Rvk
41 km
How to get there:
Drive route 1 to West Iceland, turn left after Hvalfjarðargöng tunnel
(tunnel costs 1000 kr. each way) towards Akranes. Or just take the bus.
GRAPEVINE TRAVEL
54 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 5 — 2016