One cannot speak of a trip to Iceland without addressing all its remarkable contradictions—landscape, cultural, environmental, emotional.
One cannot tell the story of Iceland without mentioning, for example, that here as much as sixty-five percent of the population believes in the existence of elves.
They call them Huldufólk, the Hidden People.
present everywhere. Much of the life and customs of the Icelanders are governed by their mystical attitude towards these invisible companions.
And their presence is felt everywhere: a magical stone, a hill, a natural element.
We will encounter several of these places throughout our journey.
Icelanders are a proud, determined people of clear Viking origin. But they are also its opposite.
They have a saying: it will work out.
Literally “everything will be fine,” a phrase that nowadays brings to mind sad periods, but for them represents the justification for procrastinating tasks and projects.
They are a strange people: they have a traditional national food that they don’t eat, or at least I have never seen them do so; evidently, they are also a clever people.
I am obviously talking about Hákarl: fermented shark, left to rot for months underground until it obtains a strong putrid taste and ammonia smell.
They are a people of pranksters: they eat lamb, good, roasted, spiced, in all forms; they eat cod, salmon, char, skyr while leaving Hákarl to us and Gordon Ramsay to make his videos.
I traveled around the island for 10 days, back and forth, in search of Hákarl, without success. I wandered everywhere and realized, as I was going crazy over false myths, how many other oddities and wonderful madnesses the island offered. I won't even go into describing the sometimes lunar landscapes, at times even Martian.
A magical place far beyond the presence of elves, a place outside of the world and outside of time.
The only piece of land emerging to represent the Atlantic fault that geologically separates Europe from America, Iceland is a country where contradictions continuously merge. Where you can find vast fields of lava reaching the sea and brushing against impressive glaciers. Where you can find black beaches of volcanic sand, dotted with small and large blocks of ice like they are diamonds embedded: ice and fire.
While traveling, you encounter people who traverse state roads on skates, pulling carts with suitcases, you pass roads that take unexpected detours to bypass a sacred stone of the Hidden People, you cross small bays that could have easily been connected by a short bridge, yet the road continues with a deep tunnel that dives into the sea only to unexpectedly reemerge several kilometers later.
You see cows wearing bras, you see bras on the fences waving to travelers, traffic lights shaped like hearts.
These are just some of the absurdities encountered along my journey, accompanying the wonders of the landscapes, with a stunned and dazzled state of mind, as I searched for the Hákarl.
Of course, my beloved wine is not produced here, but some interesting beer can be found, a lot of gin, and some forgettable whisky.
But the true traditional alcoholic product is Brennivín
Return to the world of Aquavit, a Scandinavian alcoholic beverage made by distilling potatoes or grain and flavoring it with herbs or spices. Brennivín is obtained by distilling fermented grains or potato mash and flavoring it with cumin. And you can certainly taste the cumin! The combination of nose and mouth, I must say, was particularly interesting and enjoyable even for me, who generally does not like these products. It might have been the cold, it might have been that the heart-shaped traffic lights in Akureyri put you in a good mood, it might really have been the cumin, I can't say for sure. Give it a try.
I was almost at the end of my trip, heading back to Reykjavík, I had managed to do everything I had set out for my journey. I had seen everything there was to see and even more, from whales to elves, but I wasn't completely happy; I knew something was still missing. Every time we stopped for lunch or dinner, I looked for restaurants where I could try the infamous Hákarl, the fermented shark, the terror of Gordon Ramsay.
But there was no way, no one had it, no one served it, no one ever ate it. I began to convince myself that it was yet another of the thousand travel myths.
Until the last day, when I stumbled upon it in Vík, in a supermarket, in a package that I imagine was a “tourist trap,” like me.
I immediately bought it, along with another Italian who obviously wanted to try, like me, this strange mystical experience.
I look for an appropriate place to enjoy it in peace and tranquility, I find the beautiful black beach of Vík, and I sit on a natural bench made from wood carried by the sea. My son, prophetically, even finds a stone shaped like a shark's head. I place it next to me for strength.
I am ready, we are ready! Because even my wife and my son want to taste it! They are disgusted.
I eat it, serene
Sure, it's not the most delicacy in the world; it resembles a scruffy mackerel with a strong smell of cat pee, if I really have to describe it. I taste it again, just to be sure, but it’s not that terrible.
In fact, a month later, I still can't decide whether the fact that it horrifies great chefs and people used to eating well, while it doesn't horrify me, is a compliment to me or more likely a demonstration that I really eat badly!
But, as I taste it, I find myself reflecting: I wonder how it could have been, paired with a good Friulian Sauvignon Blanc?
