Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 76

Sunday, July 9, 1972 XuHlin Pajre E20 Austin, Texas i.Hl YWf ImII' JAilr4V5 St. It ZAuxi 5, a- jv n. T' 'jy-y W'J. iijo vx. iwukit .1 jary w.wdv.

-Hit 1 riv -y, 'f i v. www yy. ww.vsvy -'dwsKiiAV w.vv i tot I III nil' llin hi v. j. linked to the 20th Centurv liv an airport with reg-ularlv scheduled flichts three times weekly from Keykjavik, the nation's capital, and daily bus service to Akureyri, largest town in the north.

NOli I III- KN OI1T0S1 Soiit.irv pill inb its wav cros harlmr it 1 1 tt--a ik, a pirtiircsijin; fishing village ol than 2,1 Ml inhabitants on Icclaml's rupscil riDrtlnTii roa-f. lVacrinl nnil scriMin lint in moijrrn Ice la nil, riMi this niall villa fie is VIKINGS MADE HISTORY IIERK Idyllic field at Thingvcllir is Althing, Iceland's parliament which is historic site where Viking chiefs met in 930 A.I), and formed the oldest legislative assembly in the world. Iceland New 'In' Destination for Vacations and pastures on the outskirts of town. Most hotels in the capital are modern, with excellent conveniences. The eight-story Saga has a sky-top, glass-encased restaurant and night club, while the newly enlarged 218-room Hotel Loftleidir, biggest on the island, has plush nightclubs, cocktail bars, two dining rooms, several convention halls, a cafeteria, a large indoor swimming pool, sauna baths and fine shops.

Other first-class hotels in town include the continental -style Borg, the modern Holt and the new Esja. More modest, but comfortable, are the new Ness, the City, Vik and Gardur, the last consisting of the National University's dormitory which is available for low-cost accommodations in the summer. Rates for room and bath without meals range from about $9 to $11 nightly per person, double occupancy, in the summer. Although there are some 1,200 hotel beds in the capital, plus many more at private homes (about $6 nightly), accommodations are scarce from May through September, and reservations should be made in advance. Rates drop at least 20 per cent from October through May.

There is no tipping anywhere in Iceland but hotels and restaurants will add a 15 per cent service charge and 10 per cent tax to your bill. For meals in first class restaurants and hotels, estimate about $1 for very htile air pollution. Other than at hot-houses heated by thermal springs, agriculture consists mainly of grazing, thus little DDT or other noxious pesticides. More than a million sheep, outnumbering people by five to one, roam the green summer grasslands freely, to be rounded up twice yearly for shearing and culling. Birds wing through the sky by the thousands.

Iceland has escaped urban sprawl, although its beginnings may be seen in the rapid growth of Reykjavik. There is no crime problem. No army or navy. No unemployment. HIGH LIVING STANDARD Icelanders enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, exceeding most modern western European nations in per capita income.

Iceland contributes a larger portion of its national income than any other nation to old-age benefits, public health and other social welfare projects. The nation has the highest literacy rate in the world. Icelanders read and publish more books than any other people. The ratio is said to be about 70 to one as compared with the United States. "Better shoeless than bookless," is a national motto.

Icelandic television is a recent innovation forced on the government when inhabitants purchased TV sets to listen to American programs from the Keflavik NATO base. UNIQUE SCENERY Iceland is unique in natural attractions. It has seven 30 active volcanoes here is the World Championship Chess Match between championship Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union and challenger Robert Fischer of the United States. You can hold a dozen summit meetings in Moscow and back to Washington between President Nixon and Secretary General Brezhnev but as far as Iceland is concerned the rr3jor international issue of the year will be decided right here in Reykjavik by Spassky and Fischer. The oft-postponed match, scheduled to begin July 2, consists of 2i games if a decision is not reached earlier.

It may run for two months. Why all this aitivny in Iceland'' Maybe history repeats itself, for once before, Mid or 400 years ago, Iceland was called the "Athens of the North." It was then that bold Icelandic explorers such as Eric the Red and Leif Encson ranged the northern seas, established settlements in Greenland and discovered and settled a new world that later, after re-discovery, came to be known as America. In the same era, the zenith of medieval European literature was reached in the form of the famed Icelandic Sagas and Fddas, according to most experts. Modern day descendants of this literary tradition in Iceland include Halldor Laxness, Nobel prize winning novelist whose plays were featured at the recent art festival. MISUNDERSTOOD ISLAND In medieval European folklore, Iceland was known photographs of the moon.

It is difficult to imagine that this land, so little endowed with natural economic assets, is so prosperous. The mid -Atlantic, Ohio-sized island has an area of 39,768 square Actually, it is not the land but the surrounding sea that is the basis of Iceland's prosperity. Icelanders catch more fish, per capita, than any other people. Fishing and associated industries provide more than 90 per cent of the nation's foreign exchange. The main catch, hernng and cod, is shipped to all corners of the world from busy Reykjavik Harbor.

The concluded civil war in Nigeria illustrates the importance of Iceland's fisheries. Until disrupted by the war, the supply of dried Icelandic cod was a mainstay of the protein intake of people in Biafra Fishing is a vulnerable occupation, however, and a scarcity of hernng threatened Iceland's economy a few years ago. Fortunately, the. recent growth of tourism has largely filled the gap. Reykjavik is a pleasant surprise, with its pastel-colored homes overshadowed here and there by new 14 story apartment buildings.

A new skyscraper cathedral is under construction but most buildings are small and the city has a spacious appearance except in the crowded downtown area with its old world European charm. Sheep and cattle can be seen grazing in empty lots REYKJAVIK, Iceland -This is the world's northernmost national capital. Relatively few Americans have heard of it. Less can pronounce it. That's all changing.

Reykjavik (Ray'kya-veek). Better learn how to say it. You're talking about the new "Athens of the North." Here in Iceland, culture reigns supreme. And tourism floodgates have opened wide in this tiny, semi-cosmopolitan capital of 90.000 inhabitants who represent a goodly portion of the Republic's total population of 206,000. World-famed artists fkn ked here for Reykjavik's second biennial International Art I-'cstival this month when more than 50 concerts, an and sculpture exhibitions and drama presentations were attended by well over half the island's population.

Among the big names were Soviet pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy who lives here and has just become an Icelandic-citizen; violinist Yehudi Menuhin, pianist Andre Watts, conductor Andre Previn and dozens of well-known soloists and groups from the United States and Europe. Indeed, the epidemic of culture even overshadowed opening day of the fishing season in a land which boasts the best sports angling for salmon in the world. For residents and tourists alike, symphonic cymbals clashed louder than the roar of F.urope's greatest waterfalls which are situated on this island. And more earth-shaking than the possible eruption of The as the site of the terrible Hckla volcano the gateway to hell through which damned souls passed from this earth to the fiery nether regions of eternal sorrow. More recently, the island gained an equally erroneous reputation as a barren land of Eskimos and polar bears.

Starting with its chilly name, which does not conjure the most pleasant of images, there have been many misconceptions about this northern mid-Atlantic island which was first settled by Viking adventures in the year 871 A.D. In fact, there are no Eskimos in Iceland, nor have there ever been any, unless as tourists. The only polar bear resides at a new aquarium in the fishing town of Hafnarfjordur. Greenland really is an ice land, while Iceland is a grass-covered green land, at least during sum mer months. And, despite the weird underground "hammering" heard by thousands of visitors during Hekla's last eruption in 1970, one can not lend credence to medieval superstition.

The volcano is merely a natural phenomenon. ECOLOGISTS' PARADISE Whether you're seeking ecological balance, social responsibility, lovely blondes or lively night clubs, you'll find them all in Iceland. The rivers, streams and lakes are crystal clear and chock full of trout and salmon. Factories operate on abundant hydro-electric power, and homes are heated by water from natural thermal springs, thus there is still in existence as the breakfast. 12 50 for lunch and, $5 for dinner.

Last year, 14,888 visitofi; used Icelandic Airlines stopover tours which aret offered at rates of S27, $60 and I $82 for respective stays of two or three days, June I through September and October through May for $19 $43 and $55 at luxury hotel accommodations, all meals, a city tour, sightseeing in the countryside and other amenities. Attractions include visits to Thingvcllir, the cliff-rimmed site where the Althing first met in 930 AD; Gullfoss, the beautiful "golden waterfall" with its ever present rainbow; and the Great Geysir thermal area where one can sec the namesake of spouting springs throughout i he world. EXCITING TOURS Most tours call at Hveragerdi, a hot-spring town with huge greenhouses, heated by natural thermal water. where flowers, vegetables and even showpiece tropical crops such, -as bananas are grown virtually at the rim of the Arctic Circle. Scores of other tours are offered, including 36 outlined, in an Iceland Adventure booklet free from the airline: ith photographs and detailed descriptions, departure dates, itineraries, and rates for 34 tours of Iceland and two tours of Greenland.

For current information and folders about tours and contact Icelandic Airlines, Room 620, 630 Fifth New York, N.Y. 10020. i A "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute." Summer afternoons average in the 60's and 70's. But Icelanders and most visitors do not let weather get in their way. Swimming is the national sport in scores of outdoor pools heated by natural thermal springs and protected from the elements by windbreaks.

Even the smallest villages usually have a pool, and people swim outdoors year round, right through snow storms! Midnight golf is popular in the summer. GROWING TOURISM Iceland has become a thriving tourist destination. In' 1971, 60,719 tourists, a gain of 15 percent, visited the northern mid-Atlantic island. Including cruise passengers, visitors totaled 71,324. There were only 12.806 visitors in 1960 and 4,383 in 1950.

Americans constitute the largest single group of visitors; about 45 per cent in 1971. Most stop en route to Europe via Icelandic Airlines. The airline is the nation's largest corporate taxpayer and an example of thriving private enterprise in a so-called "welfare state." Icelandic, which features lower trans-Atlantic fares than any other scheduled airline, carried 282.546 passengers in 1970. This is more than the entire population of Iceland! On landing at the Keflavik NATO airport after a flight of some 2,700 miles from New York, what do visitors sec and do in Iceland? First, they see a volcanic -lava landscape not unlike yy "Wy. syfy major breeding areas for and North America.

glaciers including 3,200 -square mile Vatnajokull, the largest glacier in Europe (if one considers Iceland to be a part of Europe) and larger in area than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. More than 30 active volcanoes overlook an amazing landscape of green fertile valleys, lava cliffs, sparkling trout streams, swift salmon rivers, rustic farms, coastal fishing villages, grotesque boiling mud holes, thousands of geysers, and scores of waterfalls, including the largest in Europe. Twelve miles off the southern coast is the island of Surtsey, formed by an underwater volcanic eruption in 1963. Myvatn, a northern lake with hot spring caves, is said to host the largest gathenng of summer water fowl in the world. Nearby arc steaming Dante-hke sulfur fields, and cliffs inhabited by the rare Icelandic falcon.

MILD CLIMATE As Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream, winter, though long, does not get as cold as in stateside cities such as Boston, Chicago or Portland, coast to coast. The average temperature at Reykjavik in January, the coldest month, is 30 degrees. Climate, however, is not one of Iceland's attributes. The weather is often rainy, even in the winter although northern Iceland has a fine snowfall for skiing and there is summer skiing on the glaciers. Most of all, the weather is changeable.

You may have blue skies and rain storms three or four times a day. Icelanders say. be one of the world's water fowl from Europe i py Si i yy 4 r-yyyyy- yyjtyy -A 4 '-w llL oi. y' 7 'A i If', 'i yy i ti ''t ip, Asste -v Ayhs iyyyyyyyyyyyj ittMMiWlflfr 4 A WHERE IN THE WORLD? hile land's mod young people dressed in not quite Carnaby btrect in atmos- latest continental styles--nndi coatsr phcrc, Reykjavik nevertheless sports mini dresses, and, of course, hot a cosmopolitan look nurtured by Ice- pants. I THE GODS' ORGAN I he waterfall var-tifos in southeastern Iceland plunges into a luifie amphitheater rimmed by natural basalt columns resembling tall organ pipes.

Iceland boasts several of Europe's greatest waterfalls. LAVA LAKE Weird lava formations dot Lake Myvatn, a summer resort site in north central Iceland. The lake is chock full of trout ami is said to.