Ten days in Iceland: one road, 1,332 km, the whole way round

The concrete church at the top of the town, its front modelled on the basalt columns you will be seeing all week, finished in 1986 after four decades of building. The church is free and the lift up the tower is not. The statue outside is Leif Eriksson, given by the United States in 1930.

Downhill from the church, the concert hall on the water, in a skin of coloured glass that catches whatever light the bay is giving. Walking in and up the stairs is free, and the foyer at dusk is the reason to bother.

The hot dog stand by the harbour, going since 1937, still with a queue. One with everything means raw and crispy onions, ketchup, sweet mustard and remoulade over a lamb sausage, and it is the cheapest dinner you will eat in the country.

A 60 metre ribbon coming off the old sea cliff, and the one waterfall in Iceland you can walk behind. The path round the back is short, slippery and soaks everybody, so waterproofs on and phone away. Free, open all year, paid car park.

Half an hour east, a 60 metre wall of water 25 metres wide with enough spray to hang a rainbow across it on a sunny day. Walk right up to the base, then take the staircase up the side for the view along the coast from the top.

The cluster of cafes by the falls is the last reliable hot food before Vik, and the soup with refills is the standard order.

A tongue of ice reaching down off Myrdalsjokull, a few kilometres up a side road and the most accessible glacier on the south coast. The walk from the car park to the lagoon at its foot takes fifteen minutes. Stay off the ice without a guide and crampons: the surface is rotten at the edges.

Black volcanic sand, a cliff of hexagonal basalt columns you can climb a few steps of, and the Reynisdrangar sea stacks standing offshore. Puffins nest on the headland from May to August. Stay high on the beach.

East of town in the Hjorleifshofdi headland, a cave carved by meltwater under a glacier more than 100,000 years ago, whose mouth happens to be the shape of a certain small green Jedi. The last stretch is a sandy track and the walk in takes about fifteen minutes.

Vik has a handful of places along the main road doing soup, lamb and pizza, and all of them are busy between one and two.

The village pool, geothermal, outdoors, about 28 degrees with a much hotter tub beside it and a view of the hill. A few euros, and the shower before you get in is compulsory and unclothed. It is what everybody in the village does at five.

A green canyon of mossed cliffs and waterfalls off a short unmarked track from Route 1, west of the big glacier stops. The walk in is about 45 minutes each way over boggy ground and it filters out almost everybody. Boots, not trainers.

There is very little between Kirkjubaejarklaustur and the lagoon, so buy something before you leave Vik or accept a hot dog at a petrol station.

A lagoon of floating icebergs calved off the glacier at its head, drifting slowly towards the sea while seals work the channel. Zodiac and amphibious boat trips run in summer and need booking; the shore walk is free and nearly as good. Cross to the beach afterwards for the stranded ice on black sand.

A museum at the farm of Hali, 40 km west, built for the writer Thorbergur Thordarson and shaped like a shelf of giant books. Half of it is about the man, half about how anybody farmed this strip of land between the glacier and the sea. An unexpectedly good hour.

The town's own museum, in a white timber warehouse moved down to the harbour, covering local life between 1850 and 1950. Small, cheap and honest about how hard it was.

The lobster restaurant by the harbour, in an old building, doing the langoustine the town is known for without much ceremony. Officially summer only, so phone in the shoulder season rather than turning up. Book a table either way.

The first four hours run round the fjords through Djupivogur and Breiddalsvik, then cut inland. Fuel and lunch at Egilsstadir, which is the last real town before the pass.

A hillside of boiling mud pots, fumaroles and sulphur-stained ground right beside Route 1 as you come in from the east. Stay on the marked paths: the crust between the vents is thin and the water underneath is over 100 degrees. Twenty minutes here, and your clothes will smell of it all evening.

The north's answer to the famous lagoon near the airport, opened in 2004, with the same milky blue mineral water drawn from deep underground and a fraction of the crowd. Sit in it looking over the lava field at the end of a long driving day and the drive stops mattering.

Usually called the most powerful waterfall in Europe, 44 metres down and 100 metres across, grey with glacial silt and loud enough to feel through the rock. The west bank, on the paved road 862, has the better view and the easier access.

There is nothing to eat at the falls. The cafes at Reykjahlid and on the south shore are the options, and both close early out of season.

Dark forts, which is what the name means: a field of lava arches, pillars and collapsed tubes left by a flow about 2,000 years ago. Marked loops run from twenty minutes to an hour and the short one gets the best of it.

A near-perfect tephra crater a kilometre across and 463 metres high, thrown up in an eruption around 2,500 years ago. A steep gravel path climbs to the rim in about half an hour and the walk round the top is flat, exposed and worth it for the view over the whole lake.

A wide horseshoe of falls on the Skjalfandafljot, about forty minutes east of Akureyri, with paths to viewpoints on both banks. The name means waterfall of the gods, from the story that the lawspeaker who declared Iceland Christian around the year 1000 threw his pagan carvings in here on the way home.

The town church, up a long flight of steps above the centre, by the same architect as the one in Reykjavik and with a stained glass window said to have come out of Coventry Cathedral before the war. Small, bright and usually empty.

The town pool, and one of the best in the country: two outdoor pools, hot tubs at rising temperatures, three slides and a view down the fjord. Late afternoon is when the town turns up.

Fuel at Blonduos or Stadarskali, both of which have the standard road stop of soup, hot dogs and coffee. The tunnel under Hvalfjordur saves the better part of an hour and has been toll free since 2018.

The oldest pool in the capital, a 1930s building five minutes from Hallgrimskirkja, with an indoor lap pool and hot pots on the roof terrace. Wash properly and without a swimsuit before you get in, as everywhere else this week.

The lanes between Laugavegur and the harbour are where to eat, and a Friday or Saturday needs booking.

The foundations of a 10th century longhouse, found during building work and left where they lay with the modern city built over them. The name is the date of the ash layer under the wall, which fixes the settlement to within a couple of years of 871.

A cinnamon bun and a filter coffee with a free refill is the local habit, and most cafes in the centre open at eight.