Whale watching from Reykjavik harbour: where the boats leave and what is around the quay

The Old Harbour is not a terminal. There is no departures board and no single check-in desk: each operator has its own hut or kiosk on the quay, and your boat is tied up somewhere along the same stretch of water. In July that stretch is busy with several hundred people at a time.

Two practical things follow. Check the operator name on your voucher, not the boat name — several companies run more than one hull and swap them between sailings. And allow the full thirty minutes: the walk from the hut to the pontoon can be five minutes on its own, and the queue for overalls forms before boarding rather than after.

The harbour is still a working port. Fishing boats land here, the ice plant runs, and the slipway usually has something being scraped. That is part of the pleasure of the place and it also means the quay has vehicles on it — keep children close on the walk out.

Kaffivagninn, on Grandagarður, has been feeding fishermen since 1935 and is the least touristy breakfast within a kilometre of the harbour. Bæjarins Beztu, the famous hot dog stand, is a five-minute walk east towards the old town. Along Grandagarður there is a row of former fish sheds now holding a bakery, an ice cream shop and several restaurants.

The Maritime Museum sits on the same quay and is worth an hour if a sailing is cancelled: it explains the fishing industry that built this harbour, and there is a coastguard vessel to walk through. Whales of Iceland, a warehouse of life-size whale models, is ten minutes further along Grandagarður and is the best wet-weather substitute if your trip is called off.

For the walk back into town, keep going east along the waterfront and you reach Harpa, the glass concert hall, and the Sun Voyager sculpture. From the boat you will have seen both from the water twenty minutes earlier, which is a small pleasure that nobody plans for.

The Old Harbour was built between 1913 and 1917, and before it existed Reykjavík had no harbour at all — boats were rowed ashore and cargo was carried up the beach. The breakwaters that shelter the pontoons today were built from rock quarried at Öskjuhlíð, brought down on a railway that is the only one Iceland has ever had.

For most of the twentieth century this was the working heart of the city: a herring and cod port with ice plants, salting sheds and a slipway. The buildings along Grandagarður that now hold bakeries and design shops were fish-processing sheds within living memory, and a few still are.

That history is why the harbour is worth twenty minutes before your sailing. The Maritime Museum is in a former fish factory on the quay. The coastguard vessel Óðinn, which served in the Cod Wars, is tied up alongside and can be walked through. And the fishing fleet is still here, unloading in the early morning while the tour boats wait.

It also explains the smell, which is a real thing on a warm day, and the fact that the quay has forklifts on it. This is not a marina. It is a port that happens to sell tickets.