Downtown Midborg Walk: Rainbow Street, Laugavegur, 1881 Parliament, Tjornin & Old Harbour

Because central Reykjavík (Miðborg, postcode 101) developed from a cluster of eighteenth-century wool workshops between Tjörnin lake and the Old Harbour, you can walk its entire historic core in a single unhurried morning or afternoon. Along the way you will notice the city's signature architectural material: timber-framed houses clad in brightly painted corrugated iron (bárujárnshús), imported from Britain from the 1880s onward to shield homes against horizontal North Atlantic rain.

1. Skólavörðustígur (Rainbow Street), Laugavegur & Bankastræti

• Descending from Hallgrímskirkja to Lækjartorg: Start your walk outside Hallgrímskirkja and follow Skólavörðustígur downhill past independent wool cooperatives (such as the Handknitting Association of Iceland), ceramics studios, and cafés to its lower pedestrian stretch, painted year-round with Reykjavík's colourful Pride Rainbow Street mural. Where Skólavörðustígur meets Laugavegur ("Wash Road"), named after the path women once walked carrying laundry to the steaming geothermal springs in Laugardalur, and Bankastræti, duck into quiet back lanes such as Hverfisgata and Klapparstígur to browse vinyl record shops, Nordic bookshops, and cinnamon-bun bakeries.

2. Austurvöllur Square, 1881 Alþingishúsið, Tjörnin Lake & the 3D Map of Iceland

• Austurvöllur, Alþingishúsið (1881) & Dómkirkjan (1796): Continuing west past Lækjartorg brings you into Austurvöllur, Reykjavík's green civic square centred on Bertel Thorvaldsen's bronze statue of 19th-century independence leader Jón Sigurðsson. Along its southern side stands Alþingishúsið (Parliament House), built in 1880 to 1881 from dark grey hewn Icelandic dolerite stone to designs by Danish architect Ferdinand Meldahl to house the Alþingi, the world's oldest surviving parliamentary institution (originally founded at Þingvellir in 930 CE). Directly beside Parliament stands whitewashed Reykjavík Cathedral (Dómkirkjan, consecrated 1796), while two blocks west at Aðalstræti 10 stands the oldest surviving timber house in downtown Reykjavík (built 1762), right beside the underground 871±2 CE Settlement Exhibition.
• Tjörnin Pond & Reykjavík City Hall (Ráðhús, 1992): Walk two minutes south to the shore of Tjörnin ("The Pond"), where Arctic terns, whooper swans, and eider ducks gather year-round (part of the corner is kept ice-free in winter with geothermal water). Step inside modern concrete-and-glass Reykjavík City Hall on the northern bank to inspect the giant three-dimensional topographical relief map of all of Iceland, which shows every glacier, fjord, and volcanic plateau in miniature.

3. The Old Harbour (Gömlu Höfnin), Grandi & 1909 Höfði House

• From the Maritime Quays to the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit House: Finish by walking north across Tryggvagata (stopping at 1937 Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur) to the Old Harbour and Grandi, where turquoise-painted fish sheds now house artisan chocolate makers, fish-stew bistros, and marine museums, or stroll east along Sæbraut to white-timbered Höfði House (1909), where US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met in October 1986 to negotiate the end of the Cold War arms race.