Today is the third day of Iceland’s five-day Easter weekend, though it is not a public holiday and is a normal Saturday for shops and services.
Many people use the long weekend to visit friends and family in other parts of the country, or to enjoy festivals like the Ski Week and music festival in the West Fjords.
Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, is a major religious holiday and all bars are supposed to shut at midnight tonight as a result—though this law is not as strongly enforced as it once was and some may flout it. Today is the only day over Easter when the state-run alcohol shops are open.
Holy Saturday is called Laugardagur fyrir Páskar in Icelandic, which means (unspectacularly) ‘Saturday before Easter’.
In Christianity, today is the day Jesus was dead—following his crucifixion yesterday and his glorious resurrection tomorrow.
In modern-day Iceland, it has become known as a good day for television, with plenty of movies on; though there is plenty going on outside the home as well…
