Are There Bananas Growing in Iceland?

Yes, Iceland grows bananas. Not many of them, and no, you won't find Icelandic bananas sitting next to the imported ones in your local supermarket.

But bananas have been grown in geothermally heated greenhouses in Iceland since the 1940s, including at Reykir, just outside Hveragerði on the way from Reykjavík towards South Iceland.

It sounds like one of those strange Icelandic facts designed for a trivia quiz. But the bananas aren't really the story. The greenhouses are.

Growing food where it shouldn't really grow

Iceland isn't the obvious place to grow vegetables. The summers are short, the winters are dark and the weather isn't exactly famous for cooperating with farmers.

But Iceland has something else: heat.

Drive through South Iceland and you are travelling across one of the country's most geothermally active regions. Hot water is found beneath the ground, and Icelanders have spent generations finding increasingly useful ways to put it to work. It heats our homes and swimming pools, and it also heats our greenhouses.

That has made it possible to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, flowers – and, yes, even bananas – in a climate where you might reasonably expect none of them to grow at all.

And nowhere is this story easier to experience than around the Golden Circle.

Welcome to Iceland's greenhouse country

Drive from Reykjavík through Hveragerði and towards Reykholt and you begin to notice the greenhouses.

During the day they blend into the agricultural landscape. But drive through the area on a dark winter evening and they can be spectacular: enormous glowing rectangles in the Icelandic countryside, sometimes with snow on the ground outside while tomatoes grow in the warmth within.

This isn't a novelty or an experiment. Greenhouse horticulture has become an established part of Icelandic agriculture, and the communities around Hveragerði, Reykholt, Flúðir and Laugarás are at the heart of it.

And in Reykholt, just down the road from Blue Vacations, is perhaps the best-known example of all.

Friðheimar – from geothermal heat to your plate

If you want to understand Icelandic greenhouse farming, go to Friðheimar.

The family-run farm grows tomatoes year-round in geothermally heated greenhouses, using artificial lighting to compensate for Iceland's long, dark winters. But what makes Friðheimar particularly interesting is that you don't simply visit a greenhouse. You eat inside it.

Tables sit among rows and rows of tomato plants, bees buzz between the flowers, and tomatoes grow around you while geothermal heat keeps the greenhouse warm, regardless of what the Icelandic weather is doing outside.

Then the tomatoes arrive on your plate.

The best-known dish is the tomato soup, served with freshly baked bread, but tomatoes find their way into an impressive number of things – drinks, desserts and even tomato beer.

It is difficult to think of a better way to understand what geothermal agriculture actually means. You can read about it, of course, but sitting inside a warm greenhouse in Iceland in the middle of winter, eating tomatoes that were grown a few metres from your table, tells the story rather better.

The secret is underneath your feet

Once you understand the greenhouses, you start seeing the Golden Circle slightly differently.

The same geological forces behind the geothermal activity at Geysir also provide hot water to communities throughout this part of Iceland. People have found an extraordinary number of uses for it: heating houses and businesses, growing food, filling swimming pools and, increasingly, creating some of Iceland's most interesting geothermal bathing experiences.

Around Reykholt you can move almost seamlessly from geothermal agriculture to geothermal bathing. Laugarás Lagoon is just down the road, Laugarvatn Fontana lies a little further away, and Secret Lagoon at Flúðir offers another interpretation of Iceland's long relationship with hot water.

Geysers, tomatoes, swimming pools, lagoons – and those slightly improbable bananas – may look like completely different things, but they are all connected.

There is heat beneath your feet.

Don't just see the Golden Circle. Taste it.

Most Golden Circle itineraries are built around three names: Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss. And you should absolutely see them.

But there is another Golden Circle hiding between those famous attractions. It's the one where tomatoes grow through the winter, where dinner can be served inside the greenhouse that grew it, where geothermal water heats the local swimming pool and where you can finish your day soaking in a lagoon surrounded by the South Iceland countryside.

It is also a place where, for reasons that suddenly don't seem quite so ridiculous anymore, Icelanders once decided that they could probably grow bananas too.

Stay in the middle of it all

Blue Hotel Fagrilundur and Blue View Cabins are in Reykholt, right in the middle of this geothermal landscape.

Friðheimar is nearby and Laugarás Lagoon is only 11 km away. Geysir and Gullfoss are an easy drive, as are Laugarvatn Fontana, Secret Lagoon, Skálholt and many of the smaller places that make this part of Iceland worth exploring slowly.

That is one of the advantages of staying on the Golden Circle rather than simply driving around it. You have time to stop, eat, soak and discover some of the stories hiding between Iceland's famous attractions.

So yes, Iceland grows bananas.

But come to Reykholt and we'll show you something much more interesting: how Iceland grows tomatoes.

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