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Traditional celebrations were once at the heart of the Icelandic community, providing a reason to get together and promote a feeling of nationhood against the backdrop of isolated farmsteads. Nowadays the traditional feasts, featuring marching bands and lots of dried cod, still survive alongside a host of modern festivals heralding the new identity of the country. Perhaps the most notable of these new celebrations is the Iceland Airwaves, which showcases the country’s burgeoning reputation as Europe’s music capital of cool. And Iceland being Iceland, the festival calendar includes everything from the sublime to the ridiculous: from a day spent eating cream buns to what has been dubbed the best festival in the world. This latter extravaganza takes place on Heimaey in the Westman Islands on the first weekend in August, when 10,000 people come together camp, drink, party and drink some more, recovering the next day to catch baby puffins and send them out to sea until they get bigger. How refreshingly different.
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