The Sun Voyager

What makes it special

Curved ribs and a long prow point out over the bay. It looks like a Viking ship, but Jón Gunnar Árnason called it a dream boat, an ode to the sun. Árnason meant it to stand for hope, progress and the promise of undiscovered lands.

It is an abstract vessel, with no hull to fill it in: only the skeletal outline of a boat.

The ribs are polished stainless steel, set on a ring of solid granite slabs on a small headland beside Sæbraut. The piece is about 18 metres long, nine wide and seven high, built to the artist's original models.

Árnason died before he could see it installed. It stands by the sea in the centre of the city, where you can walk right round it.

Visiting

One lap of the granite ring comes first, before any photographs. In sun the steel mirrors the sky; under cloud it turns grey.

Then step back onto the walkway and frame the boat with Faxaflói bay and Mount Esja across the water behind it.

Afterwards, carry on along the Sæbraut shore path rather than turning straight back. Walk west with the water beside you to Harpa, then continue to the old harbour, so the sculpture becomes one stop on a longer seafront walk.

Tips

Sunrise gives light as good as sunset's, and the shore is quieter then if you want the boat to yourself for photographs.

You need no guide here, and most Reykjavík city tours stop at the sculpture. The stop is free and central, so you can fold it into a morning walk round the city centre.