The Edition hotels, part of the Marriott group, are based on two paradoxical ideas. Despite having a collective identity as a chain, they all have their own idiosyncratic character – and each one seeks to be a boutique hotel on a grand scale.
The Reykjavik Edition is one of the newest, having launched at the end of 2021, just as Iceland was reopening after the pandemic. And, like its forerunners, it is a very stylish place to stay. It shares with them a crisp, modern aesthetic, with plenty of sleek, dark surfaces in the perfumed corridors and common areas – but here they’re supplemented by a distinctly Nordic twist. Blonde timber and unpolished concrete are softened with sheepskins, woolen blankets and faux furs, draped liberally across beds, benches and restaurant chairs.
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What really sets this hotel apart, however, is its location. Right on the water, it overlooks the glass-sided Harpa concert hall, and beyond that, across the water, the snowy peak of Mount Esja and the Snæfellsjökull glacier. The rooms, with floor-to-ceiling windows, make the most of the setting.
Why come here?
A small city with a big personality, Europe’s most northerly capital is at once a remote outpost and a cosy compendium of everything we’ve grown to love about the Nordic way of life. With warm cafes, cool restaurants and the restorative sense that nature still has a place even in the heart of the city, Reykjavik is more than just a launchpad for a tour of the island.
What to do
The Edition hotel is right next to Reykjavik’s main shopping area, a grid of narrow streets lined with shops and cafes. In a world of cookie-cutter high streets, the architecture here remains unique: corrugated iron is the building material of choice, brightly painted and affixed to cottage-like homes, churches and businesses, giving even the heart of the city a village-like feel.
Walk along the harbour and you’ll find the Sun Voyager sculpture by Jon Gunnar Arnason (above), a stripped-back Viking ship that overlooks the bay. You can learn more about the country’s relatively brief human history – it was settled little more than a thousand years ago – at the National Museum of Iceland.
Or turn inland and take a stroll around Tjornin, a picturesque lake (frozen for half the year), from which you can admire the skyline – and plot your route to the Hallgrimskirkja (below), the modernist church whose concrete spire rises above the city. Austerely Lutheran on the outside, it reveals a warmth within, where its light wooden pews – and colossal pipe organ – glow in the bright sunlight that streams through its plain glass windows.