Kolaportid Flea Market

Kolaportid runs on Saturdays and Sundays in a bare warehouse near the old harbour, and it is the closest thing Reykjavik has to a public market. Most of the floor is secondhand: clothes, books, records, old tools, hand-knitted wool sold by the people who knitted it. At the back is the food section, where dried fish, dark rye bread, smoked lamb, cured and salted products and the fermented shark that visitors dare each other to try are sold over the counter. It is scruffy, loud and entirely domestic, and prices are what locals pay rather than what tourists expect.

Highlights

• The food counters - dried fish, rye bread, smoked lamb and cured products.
• The secondhand halls - clothes, books, records and household goods.
• Hand-knitted wool - sweaters and mittens sold directly by the knitters.
• Licorice and sweets - the Icelandic licorice range, sold by the bag.

When to go

Weekends only, and the hours are short, roughly the middle of the day on Saturday and Sunday, so it is easy to miss entirely. Late morning has the fullest stalls; the last hour brings the discounts and the emptier tables. Rain outside makes it noticeably busier inside.

Things to know

It is a flea market rather than a food hall, so most of the space is jumble and the food is one corner of it. The building is cold and the lighting is poor. Card payment is not universal among the smaller stalls. If your weekend does not line up with the opening days, there is no alternative version of it.

Nearby

The old harbour, the Sun Voyager sculpture and the city centre are a short walk away.

Key facts