Leave the city for Þingvellir National Park, a UNESCO site where Iceland’s tectonic plates literally drift apart. Here, you can walk in a rift valley between North America and Europe – an otherworldly feeling, as if the earth is opening up to whisper its ancient secrets. Jagged rocks and clear spring-fed creeks create a stark, powerful landscape. Nearby, the Great Geysir and Strokkur geyser await in the Haukadalur valley, where boiling water erupts from the ground every few minutes, punctuating the silence with nature’s applause. The air smells of minerals and sulfur; the ground trembles softly under your feet. It’s easy to see why Icelanders like Björk feel a deep connection to the raw forces of nature here.

You step between the cliffs at Þingvellir, hand trailing along lava rock covered in soft moss. The ground beneath seems alive – a slow, geological heartbeat. In your headphones, Björk’s “Mutual Core” begins: a song from her album Biophilia that compares romantic upheaval to tectonic plates grinding. “We’ll steady up to earth… fuse and melt,” she sings, her voice echoing against the canyon walls. At the next beat, Strokkur geyser erupts in the distance – a scalding column of water shooting into the sky. You gasp, laughter tumbling out – it’s like the land is dancing to the music! This is Iceland’s geology set to song.

Björk’s work often fuses the elemental with the emotional, and nowhere is this more evident than in “Mutual Core”, where she uses volcanoes and continental drift as metaphors for human relationships. Standing at Þingvellir, you feel that symbolism – the push-pull of love mirrored by the slowly shifting earth. The Golden Circle route (Þingvellir-Geysir-Gullfoss) is a celebration of earth’s power. Gullfoss waterfall’s thundering cascade is just a short drive away, and its misty rainbows can be seen as a visual counterpart to Björk’s lyric “state of emergency… is where I want to be” in “Jóga” – both fierce and beautiful. While here, listen to “Earth Intruders” (inspired by dreams of nature’s chaos) or the gentle “Solstice” (which captures the cosmic rhythms of nature).