ION Adventure Hotel

Reception staff run a Northern Lights wake-up call. Request one at check-in and night staff will knock on the door at whatever hour the aurora appears. They are usually as excited as the guests when it happens.

ION sits on the lava slopes of Mount Hengill, an active volcano in the geothermal field above Lake Þingvallavatn. From the outside it is a black, lava-textured slab on stilts, designed to look like a basalt post pile and to recede into the surrounding moss-covered terrain. Twenty minutes north is Thingvellir National Park; an hour east are Geysir and Gullfoss; Reykjavík is forty-five minutes back to the west.

The forty-five rooms run on a Minarc concept of industrial concrete softened by salvaged Icelandic materials — reclaimed wood, lava, Icelandic wool. Sinks are cast from recycled tyres, lights are made from driftwood and lava. Sóley Organics fills the bathrooms; fair-trade organic linen the beds. The Deluxe rooms add floor-to-ceiling windows and murals of Icelandic horses. Earth Check certification reflects the sustainability brief that runs through every material decision.

Silfra Restaurant runs Nordic cuisine under chefs Hafsteinn Ólafsson and Þráinn Freyr Vigfússon — Arctic char from Lake Þingvallavatn (the only lake in the world with four resident varieties), lamb, locally foraged ingredients. The Northern Lights Bar opens westward through 180-degree panoramic windows. The Lava Spa runs a geothermal outdoor pool, sauna and treatment rooms; massages and facials with Icelandic herbs are bookable in advance.

The hotel's tour desk arranges the standard Golden Circle calendar — Silfra snorkelling between the tectonic plates, snowmobile and ice-cave expeditions from Skjól Basecamp, super-jeep aurora tours, Icelandic-horse riding through the Ölfus countryside, inside-the-volcano hikes into a dormant 4,000-year-old caldera. But it is genuinely worth setting aside time to do nothing but watch the weather change across the lava field from the bar.