Nightwatch

Chapter 19 of Search For a Dancer, a memoir of a week spent in Iceland in November 2022

I always get a bit of a rush when I go out at night in Reykjavík. In my visits in 2004 and 2006 there was always a palpable sense of danger, ‘gangs’ of young ruffians seemed to prowl the city centre, rowdy and often drunk. I witnessed several acts of vandalism and intimidation but that era seems to have passed, although there have been a rash of stabbing incidents in recent months.

Maybe I’ve just been lucky.

The night air is cool, of course, sometimes windy, but the nearly empty city in its ‘evening clothes’ shows a different face than that of the tourist-thronged daytime hours:

The often severe architecture can be a little foreboding, but I enjoy walking through Reykjavík neighborhoods at night, at times it seems as if I am on a film set:

A corrugated steel-clad house can be just as attractive as a marble palace:

Of course if you are lucky the night sky over Reykjavík has its own attractions:

Search for a Dancer Index…