The blue whale
Twenty-five metres above your head.
Giles Laurent — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Giles Laurent — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Giles Laurent — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Giles Laurent — CC BY-SA 4.0
To walk beneath a blue whale: Europe's largest whale exhibition, in a warehouse at the old harbour, shows twenty-three life-size models of every whale that swims around Iceland — from the twenty-five-metre blue whale hanging above your head to dolphins and the tusked narwhal. The hall is dark and blue with real recorded whale song, the models hung at their true dimensions so you understand the scale with your body rather than from numbers. Interactive screens explain migration, hunting and communication, there is a children's corner with models, and an audio guide is included. Ten minutes on foot from the centre in the old harbour district with its restaurants — the logical place before or after the real whale-watching trip that leaves from the same quay.
Twenty-five metres above your head.
Real recordings in a darkened hall.
Fiskislóð 23-25, Reykjavik
Reykjavik Maritime MuseumA museum in a former fish factory on Reykjavik's old harbour, documenting Icelan4 minutes walk4.5
Cathedral of Christ the KingIceland's Catholic cathedral, on the Landakot hill west of central Reykjavik, co11 minutes walk4.4
Ingólfstorg SquareAn open square in central Reykjavik, named after Ingólfur Arnarson, whom the Ice11 minutes walk4.6
Aðalstræti 10The oldest surviving house in Reykjavik, dating to around 1762, working today as12 minutes walk4.5
The Settlement Exhibition 871±2Reykjavik's oldest house exactly where it was found: digging hotel foundations i12 minutes walk4.4No: the trip is a real sea experience but hostage to weather and luck; the museum guarantees seeing the sizes and species and explains them — best is both.