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Click on the picture to watch this audio slideshow about bird watching at Óshólmar, an area at the mouth of Eyjafjardará river just outside Akureyri in north Iceland, the largest Icelandic town outside the capital region. Not many tourists know about this attraction, which is perfect for a walk in the sun.
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Located just 40 minutes by car and six minutes from Keflavík International Airport, Sandgerdi (“Sandy Hedge”) is a growing town of 1,700 with a storied history and loads to see. Read this special promotion about the hidden secrets of one of Iceland's most charming seaside villages.
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“It is a miracle to witness this happen, and truly inspiring,” said Vladimir Ashkenazy, world renowned conductor and virtuoso pianist, looking around the National Concert and Conference Center currently under construction at the Reykjavik harbor. Mbl.is reports this today.
The Icelandic National Concert and Conference Center. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
For decades, Ashkenazy, whose wife is Icelandic, has campaigned for the building of a concert hall in Reykjavik. He organized a famous fundraising concert featuring the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s, attended by Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
This is Ashkenazy’s third visit to the construction site and he finds the main concert hall very promising. “I believe that the acoustics will be very good, given that that project is in the hands of the world’s most skilled acoustics experts.”
He hopes that he will get the chance to conduct the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra’s first concert in the new concert hall, and that in the future, some of the world’s most famous orchestras will be invited to perform there.
“If a nation can afford it, it is important to create the best possible conditions for the works of art that humanity has created through the centuries. We are a part of the European civilization and if we can be leaders we should be. The people’s will in this country is very strong and I am in awe and grateful for the fact that this building will be completed despite the tremendous problems the nation faces today. I did not dare to expect it, but I am very glad that the concert hall will become a reality.”
The human being will be on display for the first time in its natural environment in the Reykjavík Family Park and Zoo next weekend. Visitors can observe three men and one woman in a cage after 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.
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The formal Videy island swim took place yesterday and there were three participants, two men and one woman, Thórdís Hrönn Pálsdóttir, who is the first woman to participate in the Videy swim since 1959.
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The Environment Agency intends to investigate whether the Heath Protection Authority handled the situation in Eskifjördur, east Iceland, in the correct manner when contaminated water from a trawler was carried into the town’s drinking water system.
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One hundred and forty million cubic meters of ash is estimated to have fallen in Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull last spring. That excludes all the ash that fell into the ocean and in other countries.
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The second issue of the print edition of Iceland Review 2010 has just been published. Entitled “Under the Volcano” the magazine dedicates 20 pages, words and pictures, to the volcanic eruption in Eyjafjallajökull glacier which made headlines all over the word. New subscribers will receive the book Puffins as a gift and all subscribers are part of a draw to win a trip to Iceland. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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REVIEWS
Hendrikka Waage is an accomplished jewellery designer whose first children’s book Rikka and Her Magic Ring in Iceland, takes readers on an enchanted and educational journey through the country. It’s beautifully illustrated and a good lesson in geography, but the plot could have been better thought through and the moral of the story is a bit too prominent.
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On the third day of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption we drove from Skógar to Hvolsvöllur in total darkness, a distance of 18 kilometers. It was frightening, the darkness being so impenetrable that we could hardly see out the windows of the car. We could see faint lights from the farm standing right next to the highway.
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Ásmundur Sveinsson is among the foremost Icelandic sculptors. The current exhibition in the Ásmundur Sveinsson Museum in Reykjavík is entitled “I choose women who thrive…” and features women as symbols in the sculptor’s art. The works in the exhibition are selected from his entire career.
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