Travel to Iceland to follow Bjørk and Olafur Eliasson’s footsteps showed that their inspiration clearly steems from their home-countries, in case of Eliasson to parts as he is half Danish but their music in case of Bjørk and visual art in case of Olafur Eliasson is clearly linked to the nature there.

My trip to the South Coast presented me with waterfalls and a black sand beach which was film set for the television series Games of Thrones, with impressive rocks standing out from the sea. The legend has it that these two pillars are trolls that have come home from the sea with their ships at sunrise and have been turned to stone as they were not allowed to be out in daylight.

The black colour of the sand on the beach is vulcanic lava remains that was cooled by the sea and left its marks. A cave on the beach has been used as shelter.

If we look at the width of the landscape Bjørk’s Icelandic songs in her own language express this vastness that can barely be overlooked and all the many waterfalls are reflected in a more recent work by Olafur Eliasson, his waterfall project created for New York, spilling into the Hudson River and last year exhibited at Tate Modern Gallery in London.

At first Eliasson’s work tainting rivers green made me think of the Irish tainting their river green but when I saw the landscape on the South Coast of Iceland it clearly made sense that it is the moss on the mountains in the surroundings of waterfalls.

Both Bjørk and Eliasson should have been in Iceland during my holiday but neither came so I went on a walk along the bay and sang some songs by Bjørk myself and thought about throwing little things off the cliff, which were my favourite song lyrics by Bjørk freely interpreted: Let’s get out of here down to the bay and throw little things of the cliff. Certainly I sticked to little stones I threw into the water but I have to admit most made it home in a large bag full of Icelandic vulcanic stones which I carried through customs in my carry on bag. Glad when I arrived and could put them down at home.

Certainly, Reykjavik and the South Coast are a must in a Nordic country travel schedule and even though I never joined a tour I can advise to definitely do so with an experienced guide like Michaël who went to greater length and showed us all there is to see in the area we went to. Included French speaking with him and one other traveler which I thought I had forgotten but could nonetheless join in after listening for a while.

Thanks so much to Michaël for his relentless effort and prolonging the tour until no one but myself wanted to leave the bus to take photographs anymore but I climbed every hill there was to get the perfect picture and some snapshots are here to be looked at.

All my best and I hope I could inspire some of you to visit Iceland my favourite Nordic country,

Daniela

PS: Start all three videos at the same time, this is Iceland and it’s sound!
And do not forget to ask for the local Icelandic dish in Reykjavik and buy malt sauce, definitely a must have for every chef or those with love for cooking.