Welcome to Iceland Guest - Your Online Travel Guide.

Iceland Guest is an information website for your travel to Iceland. On this site you can get all the tourist information you need for your vacation in Iceland. We hope that you will find this online travel guide useful in planning your holidays in Iceland.

About Iceland
Iceland is a refreshingly unconventional travel destination. The Icelandic nature is unspoilt, exotic and mystical with its spouting geysers, active volcanoes, tumbling waterfalls, towering mountains, vast lava plains and magical lakes. Iceland’s fjords, glaciers and highland plains present visitors with some of the most beautiful and enchanting places they will ever see, as well as a rare feeling of utter tranquillity.

For travelers on a quest for action, Iceland’s pristine nature offers great potential for outdoor activities such as snowmobiling, horse riding, cave exploring, hiking, swimming, skiing, river rafting, kayaking and mountain safaris on modified four-wheel drives, to name but a few. Iceland supports a surprisingly diverse Nordic flora and fauna and is an ideal place for ornithology enthusiasts, while also offering some of the world’s best whale watching destinations.

About Reykjavik
Reykjavík sometimes feels like a cosmopolitan capital and a tiny seaside village - all wrapped up in one. But Reykjavík has the best of both worlds; the qualities of a modern, forward-looking society complemented by a close connection to Iceland‚s beautiful and unspoilt nature.

Reykjavík’s legendary nightlife is bolstered by plentiful cultural and social happenings in addition to an abundance of first-class restaurants. The size of Reykjavik city centre is also limited enough to allow for easy navigation by foot. Reykjavík has been described as a young and daring city that is characterized by strong contrasts. Conveniently small, clean and safe, it is more or less free from the major problems that haunt many other capitals. Big city events are frequent, the winter lights festival finished recently with thousands of participants and more tourist at this time of the year than we are used to.

Museum and Culture

Icelandic Museum of National History - Hlemmur 5 Reykjavik, Tel. 5 900 500

The Icelandic museum OF NATURAL HISTORY

museum OF NATURAL HISTORY

The mission of The Icelandic Institute of Natural History is to study, record and describe Icelandic nature, monitor and conserve it, and to ensure that its use is sustainable. The Institute runs The Icelandic Natural History Museum in Reykjavík.

The Icelandic Institute of Natural History is owned by the Icelandic state and operates on two sites, in Akureyri (northern Iceland) and Reykjavík (the capital). Between 40 and 50 people work at the Institute, carrying out various research and monitoring projects on Icelandic nature. The Institute's museum collections contain hundreds of thousands of specimens and samples of animals, plants, rocks, minerals, and fossils.

Founded in 1889 The Icelandic Natural History Museum in Reykjavik is one of the oldest cultural establishments in Iceland. Since 1947 the museum has been owned by the state and run by the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Within the limitations of its premises, The Icelandic Natural History Museum attempts to provide visitors with as clear an overview as possible of the natural features and processes of the country, as well as its geological formations and animal and plant life.

The museum features a range of displays, including animals, plants, fossils, principal rock types, minerals and hydrothermal rock cavity crystals. It provides an insight into the country's active volcanic systems and the origins of Iceland in context of the theory of continental drift. It also covers the flora of the country, providing examples of various vegetation types and describing the problems of vegetation destruction and soil erosion.

Many animal species are displayed in their natural settings, such as rivers and lakes, bird cliffs and the ocean. In 1971, The Icelandic Natural History Museum acquired one of the few stuffed Great Auks still in existence; the last Great Auk was killed on the island of Eldey off southwest Iceland in 1844. The museum also includes displays of all the bird species that nest regularly in Iceland and their eggs.

Icelandic Museum of Natural History
http://www.ni.is

Opening hours
Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 13.00 - 17.00, in June, July and August. Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 13.30 - 16.00, from September through May.

Admission
ISK 300. Free for senior citizens, disabled people and children under 17.

Location
The exhibition halls are on the 3rd and 4th floor at Hlemmur 5 next door to the bus-station at Hlemmur. Tel.: +354 5 900 500 / ni@ni.is

Icelandic Museum of National History
Hlemmur 5
105 Reykjavik
Iceland
Tel. 5 900 500
E-mail: ni@ni.is
Website: www.ni.is