Summer's Biggest Bash

As it was the English that Napoleon so famously dismissed as a "nation of shopkeepers" it is surprising that a nation of fishermen have an annual shopkeepers' holiday "Verslunarmannahelgi " on the first weekend of August. Predictably enough it is celebrated Icelandic style by numerous fairly enthusiastic parties and festivals, the wildest of which is Þjóðhátíð in Vestmannaeyjar.

Heimaey, the largest of the islands and a spot of simply bewildering beauty, is mobbed every year by thousands of excitable and thirsty youngsters, many of whom are seasoned regulars, to experience the festival that was voted the Greatest Party in the World according to a recent Rough Guides poll.

Þjóðhátíð translates literally as "The People's Feast" and officially it is a traditional celebration of the ratification of Iceland's constitution. The islanders were unable to attend the original celebrations on the mainland so they held their own bash and have been doing so ever since.

Many people come to Iceland to party, and this is what the festival is famous for. Sure Reykjavík is famous for a fairly lively night out, but to witness levels of almost unfathomable revelry, nowhere beats Þjóðhátíð. The boat begins dispatching the drunk on Wednesday and many of these people will not be sober until the following Monday. Sleep is possible occasionally, but never long enough to sober up, largely because an essential part of the experience is camping in the heart of the action.

As a music festival it is a bit of a mixed bag, with some excellent performers amidst the mediocre. Oddly enough the musical highlight is the Sunday evening sing-along with Árni Johnsen, an unlikely but certainly colourful cult hero. An ex-politician with a dubious past, he is Vestmannaeyjar's most famous son, who sings patriotic folksy songs to an adoring crowd immediately prior to the visual highlight, which is an eruption of red flares along the rim of the volcano forming the natural amphitheatre. Cue yet more mass hysteria.

One might expect the island residents to be less than tolerant of such an influx of chaos. Nothing could be further from the truth. They turn out en masse to cheer Árni, and for much of the rest of the time they entertain each other and guests in a neat row of white tents in the middle of the main campsite. It is well worth inviting yourself inside, they are ridiculously hospitable and will gladly lavish smoked puffin upon you, peppering you with the "How do you like Vestmannaeyjar?" line of questioning.

To escape the mayhem of the campsite for more of the same in the town, it is possible to just jump on the back of one of the lorries that are on an endless loop around the island. Also on an endless loop is the piped music playing the official Þjóðhátíð songs (one is written annually), which are so brilliantly cheesy you wonder why Iceland has never won Eurovision.

It is definitely not an event for the fainthearted but well worth attending as it is a sort of extreme Icelandic experience. Whatever you are looking for in Iceland, Þjóðhátíð in Vestmannaeyjar has it in spades. In a country famed for epic scenery the Heimaey variety is of biblical proportions, the people are fabulously friendly, and the partying is of the sort you'll never remember.

- Clement Wilson

Þjóðhátíð, Westman Islands 4th - 7th August