What I think about in beautiful places

On our fourth day staying in the sleepy (although bustling by Icelandic standards) port town of Hafnarfjördur, Claire and I decide to visit Reykjavik’s open-air folk museum – a plan we finalise while waiting for our unfriendly, teenage, and seemingly parentless Airbnb host to leave for work. Having previously been to a similar attraction in Oslo with a now-ex boyfriend, Claire is exhibiting enough enthusiasm for the outing for me to shelve my reservations.

Two buses later, we arrive at the museum – a collection of single-storey traditional Icelandic buildings (church, slaughterhouse, boy scout hut) clustered throughout a lush green field. The first building we approach is the visitor centre-cum-gift shop; I peer through the locked glass door into the room filled with miniature versions of the dwellings just metres away in their full life-sized glory. Three people stand chatting by the till, and after noticing me staring in, gloved hands cupped to glass, one briefly unlocks the door to tell us that as it’s off-season, the museum buildings are closed and the only guided tour that day has left, but we’re welcome to wander round by ourselves. I offer Claire a “might as well” shrug and lead the way towards the exhibits, wishing I’d bought a pair of shoes that didn’t have holes in.

Completely alone in the precinct, we follow the arc of the track through the field, pausing to look through the windows of some of the more intriguing buildings and trying the door handles on a few. Many of the structures are built into the contours of the rolling terrain, nestled snuggly beneath layers of earth and grass, as you might expect to see in Tolkien’s mythical Shire.

It doesn’t take long to come to the end of the path; without the luxury of the tour afforded to more organised tourists, most of the exhibits become indistinguishable from each other. We gravitate towards a swing set, both plonking ourselves down onto hard rubber seats. I gently swing myself and stare down as the soles of my battered shoes drag across the earth, creating two shallow canyons in the jet-black dirt. The dark colour of the earth reminds me of the country’s volcanic anatomy, although I’m not actually sure if either has anything to do with the other. My mind wanders to the eruption in Bárdarbunga just 140 miles away, which has been persisting for three months now. And in this moment I suddenly feel very small, as I suppose one does when they consider how close they are to an erupting volcano.