Teitur

The newly renovated National Museum of Iceland is a museum of the highest quality. The permanent exhibition The Making of a Nation is presented in very accessible, interesting and involving way making use of both good design and varied media.

In addition to the permanent exhibition there are also one to three other exhibitions in the house. One will be on the ground level in a special exhibition space accessible freely and separately from the main exhibition. Here one often finds exhibitions from the National Photography Museum, a sub-museum of the National Museum. On the 2nd floor, halfway through the permanent exhibition there is also another gallery. That one usually hosts exhibitions of items from the National Museum’s main collection. At that point one will also find an exhibition of new items, a hands on area for kids and a rest area including a reading room.

At the ground level you’ll also find the nice museum store, with a wide range of Icelandic design with connections to Iceland and Icelandic heritage.

Last but not least the Kaffitár Café there is, like other Kaffitár cafés, a top class café!

The Museum is situated at the edge of both 101 and the University complex

Though most of what English-speakers call Danish pastry is in fact German the Danish do have and excellent pastry and bread-making tradition.

One specialty is the open sandwich or smørrebrød, which is what Jómfrúin specializes in. When served at a sandwich-bar such a dish is usually a whole meal often having whole pieces of fish or meat on top of the bread. Others may have several slices of salmon, roast beef, eggs and/or different filling salads with potatoes, beans and mayonnaise. Sometimes some of the toppings are served to the side as well.

This food is usually really good and it certainly is at Jómfrúin.

Jómfrúin also serves hot dishes during lunchtime including a number of good fresh fishdishes, meatballs, hash and eggs, beefsteak and an excellent steak roast :-)

And all Danish food is of course best with some good cold beer!

In summer the restaurant also opens up to the nice paved square behind the building and on Saturdays afternoons in summer (from 15-17 hours) they hold small (free) jazz concerts there for diners :-)

After becoming enamored with Italian café culture founders Guðný Guðjónsdóttir og Guðmundur Baldvinsson founded Mokka in 1958. With it’s founding it became the first café in Iceland to introduce the new Italian coffee-making, where each cup is prepared separately with the use of an espresso machine (and not for example in a Moka Express coffe-pot)

Though I do not know whether the café uses Mocha Arabica beans, I do know that it makes both the best chocolate and Swiss Mocha in town and some really excellent waffles!

It also has exhibitions on it’s walls and a cozy though sometimes crowded atmosphere. In summer a table or two will also be set out onto the street.

^{Súfistinn and Kaffitár chocolate and mocha preparations usually match the high standard set by Mokka. Others are usually not comparable.}