Hello, I'm Richard Ayoade, the international face
of technology from the legendary television programme, Gadget Man.
But I speak to you now with a new thirst in my throat,
and that thirst can only be quenched by travel.
'Although I essentially view holidays as a time-hungry absurdity,
'even I can dream of cheerier places than Britain.
'Well, I'm turning these dreams into a televisual coup,
'by journeying to some of the most exotic...'
I came here for a party in the sky.
'..and, crucially, nearby destinations
'available at time of recording.'
So we're basically guinea pigs.
'Each week, I'll selflessly show you, with brutal efficiency,
'how to enjoy one weekend away
'with the smallest outlay of coin and effort.'
Oh!
'Welcome to Travel Man.'
I am very impressed.
Yeah, this is dynamite.
'This time, 48 hours amidst the wild and wanton scenery of Iceland.
'And, because she had nothing else on, I'm joined by actress
'Jessica Hynes...'
I feel the volcano vibrational energy. You can't feel it.
'..with whom I will take to the skies...'
This seems a steep descent.
'..chase elusive wildlife...'
That will be a moment that you will never forget.
'..and consume inedible food...'
Both those things are awful.
'..as we reveal how to get in and out of Iceland as efficiently as
'possible, while allowing brief pockets of enjoyment.'
We're here, but should we have come?
'Iceland can be reached from Britain by getting a train to Denmark,
'and then a two-day ferry crossing. Or by cruise ship.
'Or regular saps like us can get there on an aircraft.
'Like this aircraft.'
I'm so excited. About going to Iceland?
Yes. Have you been before? Never. No.
'Three hours isn't classed as long haul, but it's an eternity
'if you're forced to sit next to someone with my conversational skillset.
'So Jessica politely pretends to brush up on her Icelandic.'
SHE SPEAKS ICELANDIC
Yup.
What's the matter? SHE SPEAKS ICELANDIC
I'm lonely. That's what's the matter with me.
I'm very lonely.
'With feet now on Scandinavian soil, Jessica and I
'can begin to extract full value from this not-that-icy land.'
So have you got a body in there? What's in...?
How dare you? This is my toothbrush.
I've got a very powerful pneumatic toothbrush.
Oh, good. That keeps my teeth at this level of perfection.
Excellent. So, why have you brought us to Iceland?
Well, let me tell you now.
'Firstly, for the timewhore or readily bored, Iceland
'condenses a lot of amazing scenery
'into a relatively small area.
'Secondly, for those with one or both eyes on fiscal stricture,
'it's much more affordable than it used to be.
'In fact, if you enjoy nothing but
'the cost-free Icelandic scenery,
'you could spend less than £200 each
'on your weekend away.'
Now, Jessica, I have to look out of the window when I'm in a car,
which can give off the impression of being extremely imperious,
but it is better than me vomiting on you,
so I'm going to maintain a somewhat aloof gaze,
out into the middle distance. I appreciate that.
But I'm going to ask you, what are your first impressions of Iceland?
It's not very built up. It's not built up.
I'd say there are very few high-rises thus far.
It just seems to be nature everywhere.
'We want to maximise our exposure to Icelandic scenery,
'so we're staying out of town, in a hotel where said scenery
'will be clearly visible through the massive windows.
'The Hotel Ion was originally built as accommodation for workers
'at the nearby geothermal power station,
'which heats the hotel and 90% of Reykjavik.'
Jessica, I can't get misty-eyed - our time is short.
I've delivered what you've asked for, which is a modern hotel,
45 minutes from the city in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Happy? Very happy, Richard, yes.
Have I got time to put my boots on? You have three minutes. OK.
FRANTIC HEAVY METAL MUSIC
TRANQUIL JAZZ MUSIC
FRANTIC HEAVY METAL MUSIC
TRANQUIL JAZZ MUSIC
Good. Do you feel settled in? Yeah.
The room's beautiful. Amazing view.
There's a spa here. Well, I don't like this talk of being settled in.
Because I equate that, idiomatically,
with boredom. Let's explore.
It's not just about fun.
'Much as I'd like to stay inside among the minimalism,
'muted tones and complimentary Wi-Fi,
'it seems appropriate to take in a bit of the outside.'
Wow.
You'd be accurate in describing this as cold. It's brisk.
It's pretty bracing.
'In spite of the cold, people come to Iceland to experience
'the aggressive and stunning landscapes.
'And while you can do this via dog sled or snowmobile,
'most choose a bus tour.
'The most popular tour is of the Golden Circle,
'a round-trip of some of Iceland's most spectacular natural features.
'But that takes up to eight hours.'
So I've got a better idea. Look.
'For a mere ten times the price of a sluggish coach,
'we jointly commend you to charter a copter.
'By taking to the skies,
'we can complete the Golden Circle tour in just one hour.
'Seven hours quicker than the bus!'
Ohh...
Imagine, we could just be along at a sedate pace,
not encountering the frankly valuable lesson
that life can end at any moment.
'Our first stop on the Golden Circle tour is the home of Iceland's
'most famous water features - the geysers.'
Jess, shall we go and check out this geyser this that everyone's
going on about? Yes. OK. Let's vacate the copter.
'These geysers are liquidy illustrations of Iceland's
'active landscape, and have been spewing out magma-heated water
'here for 10,000 years.'
We're here, Jess, at the biggest geyser in Iceland.
The diamond geezer. The Ray Winstone, if you will, of Iceland.
Wow. I'd better get my camera out. Well...
I don't think it's going to go off any time soon.
It last erupted 70 foot high in the air, in 2000,
when D:Ream were at their height.
Things can only get better. Yep. Well, they didn't. No.
Unfortunately, they got a lot worse. We did get Brian Cox out of it, so.
Swings and roundabouts.
I'm going to take you to the second-biggest geyser,
the Danny Dyer, if you will.
And that erupts every three minutes, much like Danny Dyer.
Only joking. He's just an actor. He's not like that. He's in control.
Wow.
That's Strokkur for you.
Strokkur. Regular as you like.
I imagine that you will be wanting to document this
with a picture of yourself with that in the background.
That's what you... Well, the memory of it's certainly not
going to be enough. It's not sufficient. We must document it.
I'm going to gift you now... Yeah. ..the MPoD.
It goes around your smartphone, thus.
You can attach that to any object - a bench, a branch. And so on.
And also the HALO Remote.
How does it work, Richard? Well, that's already clipped in.
Yeah. You click that. Sure.
Give the tripod to somebody else. Yeah.
And then you navigate using this remote. Click on that.
Do you think I could just perch it somewhere on you? If I just...
Clip it on. Perfect. OK. OK.
Oh, look. It's swelling. Oh! Yeah!
Here we go. Bang!
I hope you didn't blow it.
'With three minutes wasted on frippery,
'we must return to the terracopter and continue on our so-called way.'
We are journeying to a valley where the North American
and Eurasian tectonic plates are tearing the world apart.
That is straight from Wikipedia. They're moving towards each other?
Or kind of, they're about to collide? All I remember is that,
in geography, that's where you did extra special training.
'Moving 2.5 centimetres a year,
'it's a rollicking romp in geological terms.
'Another Golden Circle tour stop,
'checked off without even touching the ground.
'But I demand yet more speed.'
Wow, look at that.
That's a whole heap of boiling water.
Gorgeous.
'We are ending the Golden Circle tour here at Gullfoss,
'A waterfall with a 32 metre drop over its two steps.
'Thereby, Iceland's second biggest glacier.'
This seems a steep descent. This seems too steep.
Wow. Here we are. What a view. It's pretty good. Yeah.
Look at those saps. On the other side.
All in a big line,
ostensibly closer to it. With a better view.
On the face of it, looks like that, but...
not only can we see that,
we can also see them and the car parking facility,
and the visitor centre. Sure.
And we have the added bonus of no protective barrier,
so it keeps it alive and jangling. Now I'm really glad...
You're pleased we're in the 'copter. I am.
It would have been weird not to have travelled by helicopter.
Why doesn't everyone do it?
What do you feel, Richard? Do you feel...
I feel pretty cold.
That's what I feel. Yeah.
It's a cracking display of nature. Yeah.
Words like "vitality"... Ah! .."vivacity", "water".
Those sort the words, certainly.
I'm thinking of words like "inside",
"heating", "tea".
'Travelling in the 'copter has enabled us to drink in
'the Golden Circle experience
'while saving ourselves seven hours of valuable Icelandic daylight.
'A tour de force in time-trimming travel.'
Shall we... Shall we go?
Yeah, we don't want to have too much fun. My nose is so cold. Yeah.
It's going to come off. I can feel it. I'm going to...
'Golden Circle successfully circumnavigated,
'our two separate minds turn to food.
'Eating on holiday is a miasma of uncertainty,
'but Jessica insists on booking an authentically Icelandic dinner.'
Hello. Hi. Hi. This is hakarl.
Hakarl? Yes.
And this is Brennivin, but also known as Black Death.
'Hakarl, or Greenland shark, is poisonous when fresh,
'owing to high levels of uric acid.
'But by simply leaving it to decay and hanging it out to ferment
'for a few months, it becomes technically edible.'
Why won't this kill me?
Um...
I'm not really sure. No?
It's just fine. It's OK.
Yeah. OK.
But you don't, you won't eat this, will you?
No. I don't like it. No.
Thank you. That's a good sign.
Both those things are awful.
Those are two awful things here.
Good grief. That feels terrible. It was like a jelly cube of ammonia.
And this is made from mashed potato. I quite like this.
I wish this was made back into mashed potato... This, I don't mind.
..so I could frickin' eat something.
'It's certain that neither Jessica nor I
'will ever chow down on rotten shark again.'
I'm not paying.
Thank you. SPEAKS ICELANDIC
'But it's another time-efficient cultural experience
'that we can pretend was important for some reason.
'Next, we need to make full use of Iceland's winter darkness
'and head out on a quest to witness the wonder of the Northern Lights.
'A monumental natural light display caused by the collisions
'of the solar wind and our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere.'
Jessica? We're here.
Beneath the majesty that is the night sky. Oh!
I just saw a shooting star. No. I did. It couldn't...
Are you sure it wasn't a plane? It was definitely a shooting star. OK.
That's a bright one up there.
I see you're getting a bit technical there. Yeah.
You've obviously got some star knowledge.
All of these billions of stars...
..have no use to us.
JESSICA LAUGHS They're rubbish.
There's nothing on them.
It makes you think how great we are.
'While we wait for nature to reveal his or herself,
'here's what's coming up in our final 24 hours in Iceland.
'Jessica and I rock up to elf school...'
Within the elf community, do they have health care?
'..go whale watching...'
I'm happy not to see a whale.
'..and experience another of Iceland's geothermic wonders.'
Like a bunch of white people drowning in milk.
I'm valiantly compressing an Icelandic holiday into 48 hours
with actress Jessica Hynes.
You rejoin us now during a so far, so fruitless, pursuit
of the celestial shindig that is the Northern lights.
We've packed it in, though, haven't we?
Yeah. Like a tin of sardines. Yeah.
Like a tin of rotting sardines
fermenting nicely.
No sign of the Northern lights, yet,
but, of course, the camera can sometimes see things
that the naked eye doesn't,
so we may be having this experience
but our retina are letting us down.
As if planned in advance,
the time-lapse I set up was experiencing the spectacle
on our behalves.
The machines have beaten us once more.
It's like Terminator all over again.
In a sense, I feel like I've been cheated by nature.
Now we have recorded evidence that something actually happened,
we can go to bed.
After a short and troubled sleep,
rosy-fingered dawn slaps us awake again.
Jessica, we've had an Icelandic blast. Yes, we have.
I think it's been relatively comprehensive
but we have not, as yet, drunk in any folklore or culture.
Well, we could go and visit the Handknitting Association of Iceland
and make an authentic lopapeysa jumper.
Yeah, I mean, it's a bit route one.
We could, if we were going to go off-piste culturally,
go to Bad Taste Records. Yes.
Which is the home of the Smekkleysa record label, which is where...
PEOPLE LAUGH
I don't think they were laughing at my joke.
I think they were slightly mocking
at the unnecessary increase in volume when you go into Icelandic.
It's incredible.
Yeah, I mean, they've just walked out in absolute fury
at the desecration of their mother tongue,
but continue. And this record shop,
the home of the Smekkleysa record label,
who discovered Sugarcubes
and, therefore, Bjork
and, also, Sigur Ros,
so that's a culture of a tasty kind. Are you into that?
I don't want to do those things. OK.
Do you know what I want to do? What you want to do, Rich?
I want to go to elf school.
Welcome to the elf school.
54% of Icelanders believe in elves and 90% are open to the idea.
To my disappointment, this educational establishment
did not teach Will Ferrell his craft
but it does teach visitors to the island
about these made-up creatures.
Our teacher, Magnus, is one of Iceland's foremost experts
on these non-beings.
Nearly 900 Icelanders have seen elves.
The smallest one is five or eight cm which is for flower elves.
The biggest one is about 70 or 80cm tall, which is house elves.
Within the elf community, is there a lot of discord?
Do they have a criminal justice system, health care?
Yes. It seems to have because there are elf doctors.
For the next 30 minutes, Magnus regales us with fantastical facts
on elves in Iceland,
but now it's time for Jess and I to go head-to-head in the final exam
to see who will take home
that all-important elf diploma certificate,
and, if there's one thing I must return to the airport with,
it's this pyrrhic victory.
What was the name of the elf king in the North Iceland?
King Therkalduthal.
King Thorinduil, the second one. That was quite close, wasn't it?
What is the height of elves?
Well, flowers are six to eight cms. Depending.
The flowers are five to six centimetres.
The nature ones are ten cms.
And, then, there's also house elves who are 70 to 80cms.
70 to 80cms. Yes. You have obviously done your homework in the school.
I feel you are slightly just riding my jet stream there, Jessica.
I'm disappointed.
Where are most believe in elves in the Western countries
outside Iceland? Canada, America.
Scotland. Scotland. Ireland. Yes.
Bam, as Kanye would say. Bam.
And where in the world do, normally,
they have a similar belief as in Iceland?
Aborigines. Yes. Thank you.
Thank you for coming to the school.
I'm sorry it turned nasty there, Jessica.
I just really wanted to win. I hope you learnt something.
I did not.
Mixed feelings about that.
Where do you stand on elves now?
No. I'm not standing on any elves because they don't exist.
That's fighting talk
and I'm pleased you didn't raise that with Magnus in there
because he was a big guy.
So, having experientially conquered folklore,
it's time to go on a day trip but in much less time than a day.
25% of tourists visiting Iceland go whale watching
so, as cold-hearted analysts of the travel experience,
it is our duty to see what the fuss is about.
I am happy not to see a whale.
You may pretend but, inside,
that will be a moment that you will never forget. Really?
You're not going to be standing there going, "What's the point?"
Just wait. I don't believe you. I may even yawn.
Connoisseurs of the deep claim
there are 23 different species of whale beneath us -
blue, killer, sperm and a whole bunch of other customers,
so I'm hoping to wrap this shiz up pronto.
40 minutes in, we spot movement among the waves.
Whale! I saw it!
Dolphin! Look at the dolphins!
Oh, look! Wow! That's pretty good.
That was good. They're beautiful.
Look.
This one's coming towards us. Yeah.
This one's pretty angry.
You cannot disguise your thrill. It's pretty good.
No, the tears are from the wind.
They may not be the whales we were seeking,
but they are still water-based mammals
and, thus, I'm marking it as a victory
in my embossed achievement diary.
As the end of our trip draws near,
we must assess the merits of Iceland as a destination
and break down the temporal and financial expenditure,
and, to do this, we must retire to an attraction
some might consider relaxing.
This is the Blue Lagoon.
A geothermically heated pool and spa.
The cloudy water is coloured by natural silica and minerals
that have risen from 2km beneath the earth.
It's like a bunch of white people drowning in milk.
I can't wait to get in there. Really? Yeah. I can feel it.
I can feel the volcano vibrational energy. You can't feel it.
I can. I can. No, you can't.
It's very good for skin conditions
so I think there's probably a lot of people in here with eczema. Yeah.
That's an inviting prospect.
To share a milky pond with a bunch of dead skin flakes.
And we're going to be part of it. OK.
Well, you've got two minutes to change and ten minutes to relax.
Report back. I'm going to get into my sport shorts.
Happy now?
Very happy. You're enjoying this, are you?
This is the only place this happens in the world. Yeah.
Geothermal seawater coming up and healing us all.
I don't enjoy communal showers,
being confronted with a whole wall of penis.
It's very difficult to narrow down the richness of this holiday
to just a few highlights, but, if you had to, what would they be?
This has probably been the highlight. This is it?
Something that any amateur rugby team takes for granted every weekend
has been your highlight? What was your favourite bit, Richard?
I did like the breakfast buffet. That was good.
The fish was incredible. All the fresh fish. All complimentary.
There must have been something more than the breakfast,
but I'm really struggling.
The quibbling must cease.
We have not come here to enjoy ourselves.
We must assess Iceland.
And, while you can weekend here for a frugal 186 quid,
we have spent a profligate 937 each,
but that does include a whopping five large on the copter.
It's been a heady mix of explosive landscapes...
I hope you didn't blow it.
..rotten meals...
Both those things are awful.
..and fantastic nonsense.
I hope you learnt something. I did not.
But, overall, this has been a time-efficient triumph
and, in the advisory capacity we're, for some reason, claiming to adopt,
we're pronouncing Iceland a must-do two-day destination
or MDTDD, for short.
Who knows? Maybe it will become a catchphrase.
Jessica, time to get in the jeep.
Next time, a whirlwind weekend in Marrakech with actor Stephen Mangan.
I ate the brain. You eat the eye.
That's not how it works. It is.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd