BACK 200 YEARS

66 years ago, the city of Reykjavík decided to turn Árbær, then a rural country town that was becoming deserted, into a museum, named Árbæjarsafn. The best spot in Ártúnsbrekka, it has a great view of the capital. Old houses that formerly made up the city centre, were moved and rebuilt on the site for the sake of future generations. The oldest house is Hansenhús, built 200 years ago, in 1823 at Austurvöllur by Simon Hansen, a merchant who lived there until 1847. Many important people later lived in the house, such as Jón Árnason, the folklore collector, Sigurður Guðmundsson, Iceland’s first real painter and Sigfús Eymundsson, the bookseller and photographer. The house was moved to Árbæjarsafn in 1960. All the buildings in the museum have a significant history, and there is no place or museum in Iceland where you can travel to the past as quickly as in Árbæjarsafn, which, today, is almost in the centre of the capital area.