VATNAJÖKULL, AN ICE CAP. Dominating the southern half of the island is Vatnajökull, an ice cap that is bigger than all the glaciers of Europe put together. It dates back 2000 years, covers 8,400 sq. km, is 400 metres thick and holds 200 volcanoes.

In the coastal town of Hafnarfjördur – a place that is more fun to visit than to pronounce – you find the smallest mountain in Iceland. The town hosts an international Viking festival and offers guided tours of what is, according to the local seer, the country’s largest community of elves.

ICELAND’S LARGEST FOREST. Near the town of Egilsstadir on the east coast is Iceland’s largest forest. It is about the size of a country park in Britain or mainland Europe and reflects the great paucity of trees on the island. Forests occupy only 1% of the land in Iceland and in a reforestation programme run by the government in the 1960s and 1970s, Icelanders were given seeds to thrown out of their cars as they drove around the country. Another 1% of the land is arable. Icelanders’ main occupations as fishing, cultivation in greenhouses warmed by water from natural springs and, latterly, tourism.

THE ARCTIC CIRCLE clips the north of Iceland and the island is warmed, like Britain, by the Gulf Stream. The island therefore enjoys warmer temperatures than mainland Europe of the same latitude, while also basking in 18 or more hours of daylight at the height of summer. The other side of that coin is the long period of darkness that shrouds every day in winter. Iceland’s national park at Skaftafell, a warm and balmy 11 degrees C in July and merely freezing in January, is well vegetated with shrub, some trees and wild flowers and rises to a mountain top at 710 metres.

THE BLUE LAGOON, a thermally heated open-air lake, where in winter you can bask in the water and be snowed on at the same time, was created by accident. Condensed water from a nearby power plant was pumped away and expected to disappear, but instead the minerals it contained made the lava watertight. These minerals, along with silica and algae, give the lagoon its blue colour. Here you can give yourself a natural face mask by scooping out some white mineral paste from a bucket at the side of the lagoon and slapping it on your face. White-faced figures shrouded in steam from the warm water and the moon-surface rocks that surround the pool give the place a surreal atmosphere.

ICELAND IS A PARADISE FOR BIRD LOVERS. As well as the eider duck, skua, kittiwake, Arctic tern and many kinds of gull, there is the delightful puffin, which, if you are lucky, will come and sit beside you on a cliff. Most puffins are born in Iceland. They learn to fly the hard way when their parents literally toss them out of the nests, and, after a little practice, can reach a top speed of 80 km/h. They migrate to and from Newfoundland, Norway, Ireland and Britain. Puffins mature at five years and can live to nearly 30, although some end up on restaurant menus before their allotted lifespan is over. Icelanders are fond of their puffins and may band together to help ‘lost’ birds get back to the shores or the hillsides where they belong.

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