In spite of its harsh climate, Iceland is the world’s third happiest nation. Here Kevin McCloud explains how he discovered endless joy in the country’s extreme north — off the beaten track, where dining out is an expedition in itself.
Where is your favourite destination and why?
Akureyri. It's Iceland's second city, which means it's the size of a small town in England, and it's in the extreme north. It sits at the end of a fjord and it's a long way from anywhere. As a result it feels like you're entering the 1940s. It's a sort of timewarp as well as a placewarp!
You can drive there, or you can get a flight, though in winter you'd be lucky to get there in a car because often the roads are shut or they’re ice. You need a 4x4.
When was the last time you were there, and who were you with?
It must have been five years ago now with my wife and a great friend, Ned who speaks Icelandic. It was winter, when you need to be with people in search of a particular kind of atmosphere or calm. They need to accept that driving for three hours to go to lunch might mean that the restaurant is shut, and then driving home in the dark at three o'clock in the afternoon can constitute a really satisfying day! There’s so much to see on the journeys — they’re an adventure, which is very special.
Covid put paid to a lot of travel plans, but I still remember it so fondly and I know it won't be long before we go back.
Where do you like to stay?
Some little modern plywood cabins, named Sunnuhlid. They are super contemporary cubes sitting in the snow and they rock very slightly in the wind. They’re just big enough for a week’s stay. I found them on Booking.com and I was struck by the fact that it's not the usual offering.
If you go along the south of Iceland, there’s all these expensive hotels with thermal spas, where you can just hang out in a white dressing gown with other people who've got more money than you. But these three little wooden huts are the closest thing to camping you can do in Iceland… without dying!
What were your favourite meals?
On a drive to Húsavík, which is about 2.5 hours from Akureyri — which was probably the shortest journey we did between where we were staying and going to a restaurant — we sat in the harbour and had fresh seafood. It was magnificent.
On a trip to Stykkishólmur we went into this little guest house and were offered lunch after a coffee. We sat down with six other people. We had lamb which was reared on their grass; we ate bread baked by them, made from flour which is grown by their friends; and geothermally grown vegetables.
Everything in Iceland is so sustainably grown, it makes for amazing quality food, washed down by amazing coffee.
I can’t find it on Google Earth but ChatGPT tells me it’s called Narfeyrarstofa. It says I’ve got great taste!
What would you do if you only had 24 hours there?
Oh gosh, this is really hard! I would happily make an adventure out of a six-hour car journey, just to go back and find the restaurant in Stykkishólmur! And also because it's got the most amazing church, which is beautiful and romantic. It was designed by a man called Jón Haraldsson and it looks like it’s from the 1960s — it's a sort of futurist shape, straight out of the Jetsons or The Incredibles. But it was only consecrated in the 1990s and it's got this great big sweeping bell tower that's shaped like a whale's vertebra, and inside it’s a beautiful space.
It just proves that you go to the most outlying, unremarkable place, but it also happens to have a near-Michelin star restaurant that's open in the middle of winter and an extraordinary piece of modernist architecture and a water museum!
What is the one unmissable thing you recommend doing?
Seeing the waterfalls. I don’t think you’d ever see anything like it again, particularly when they're in full speed in late winter. There's one called Goðafoss,which is phenomenal. It's an entire ring of waterfalls flowing into a huge circular pool, and then you realise it's not a pool, it's a lake, and the waterfalls are 300ft high and the whole thing is beyond your comprehension and so is the noise! Everything is magnified.
Where do you like to let your hair loose?
It gets dark very early, so we stayed in looking out the window, discussing what went on in the day, maybe watching a movie, but usually, I would sit there and edit my shots of the waterfalls, which were wobbly because the wind was so strong! You pass the time.
The one thing you would bring home as a souvenir?
One day we got excited and went down to the harbour and booked three places on the whale watching in the morning, and saw a whale which was very exciting. And as a result, in the shop, we bought pairs of Icelandic hand-knitted mittens. Since then, my friend Ned has given me a hand-knitted pullover that he ordered directly from the knitting ladies of Iceland.
Your favourite beauty spot?
Wherever you look, there's some extraordinary thing happening in the sky. It’s not anything to do with the static stuff on the ground, but everything to do with atmospherics. Of course there are the Northern Lights, but in winter, the sky moves with such ferocity and the clouds so dynamically that it looks as though it's a dragon, or it might be a god!
Is there a song that reminds you of Iceland?
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus Underneath The Christmas Tree, the 1950’s song. Ned sang it in Icelandic on the whale watching boat as the sun came up!
Your dress code for the destination?
Layers. Lots of layers.
Have you ever had an emergency incident there?
No. Though I remember the first time I went, I'd booked a car — a tiny little Renault Clio: a two-wheel drive. And when we got to the airport, they'd taken pity on us — because the weather was so bad they'd upgraded us to a giant 4X4 for free. Because they said ‘You'll die if you take the small car.’
Building you would like to live in?
I have no desire to own any more buildings, thanks! And in a way, the funny thing about Iceland is its remote location and the fact that it remains this kind of world in which the last thing you’d think on holiday is: ‘I'd love to live here’. Grand Designs is sort of partly predicated on that romantic notion of wanting what we haven't got and to express ourselves in places. But the thing about Iceland is: the welcome is so great, but it also is so different in character to any of the usual points of reference that we have, that I don't have any ambition to live there.
Do you exercise when travelling?
Last time I visited I took my touring skis with me because they're very light, and my touring boots, because you can go anywhere on the mountains and the hills and just kind of trek. Do you have a top wellness tip for the area?
There are thermal springs everywhere — in the whole country, so I'm gonna give you a negative answer. You can choose to engage with the whole tourist thing, mainly in the south of the country or to skip north, which is my preference. Get out of town, head for the hills and the mountains. In the wildernesses of Iceland you don't need a spa. What you need when you've been traipsing through 4ft-deep snow is a hot shower.
Though if you want to: in Akureyri, there's a big tunnel through the mountain, which is a major fishing port two hours along the coast, and this tunnel is around 5km. In the middle it's boiling hot, because of the geothermal capacity of the island. People go and do yoga in the laybys, and then to the edge of the tunnel and throw themselves in the snow because it's so cold, and then they stand underneath the hot shower, which is sourced from a hot spring, which runs out and pours into the fjord. There's beauty even in heavy tunneling infrastructure!
Kevin McCloud is hosting Grand Designs Live at London ExCeL, the UK’s premier home and design exhibition, from 2 - 5 May. gdllondon.seetickets.com
