Escape from the Blue Lagoon: Iceland, beyond Reykjavik

Away from the increasingly crowded capital region, there are new ways of exploring Iceland’s untamed landscapes – and a hotel that looks like a Bond lair

Dressed in traditional Icelandic jumper and matching hat, artist/musician Páll Guðmundsson is playing a xylophone made from flat stones he’s collected from the mountains. His turf-roofed studio looks like a Hobbit home, and he shows us rock sculptures, sketches and prints made by painting on blocks of ice (there’s one of Björk, obviously).

Páll grew up here, in the tiny settlement of Húsafell, west Iceland, and was inspired as a child by the artists who came to paint each summer. The landscape they captured is enchanting: a ring of dramatic mountains and rugged lava fields, with glaciers on the horizon, today wreathed in clouds. It’s October, low season, and with few people around, the sense of untamed nature is palpable.