Diamond geysir

LESS THAN A THREE-HOUR flight from Glasgow, the world's most northerly and laidback capital (pop 180,000 when everyone's in town) is out to become the capital of winter weekend breaks.

And it's not such a crazy idea. Downtown Reykjavik may be chilly, but you could feel a lot more miserable on a dreich day in the central belt (despite its name and proximity to the Arctic Circle, Iceland isn't as relentlessly cold as you'd think – temperatures on the coast rarely dip more than a couple of degrees below freezing).

And if the days are short and the nights long, Icelanders have had centuries to work out how to have a party. Tempting the rest of the world to join them has become a national preoccupation.

You know they're serious about the entertainment side of things when you emerge from the airport building at Keflavik. Catch a taxi for the 40km drive into the capital and you'll soon be swooping off across a moonscape of volcanic ash and lava in the direction of the Blue Lagoon for a dip in its famous thermal waters – all roads seem to lead to this curative spa and even the airport bus has scheduled stops.

Spying the steaming hillside, and the huge overground pipes that channel the water from its subterranean source, is a little disconcerting, but once you're sitting in the powder blue and milky waters of the lagoon, slapping silicon mud on your face and gazing through the steam at the relaxed faces of other recent arrivals, all thoughts of industrial steel evaporate and you simply think: this is mid-afternoon in February, and I'm lolling about outside, as warm as toast. Bliss.

The trick, as we found, is to get out (a) before you forget where you left your towel (it's nippy out of the water and there are a lot of towels lying around) and (b) before your fingers and toes crinkle up to mush.

If Reykjavik's Scandinavian credentials haven't struck you in the Blue Lagoon changing rooms, where uninhibited locals stroll around nude without a second thought, the Hilton Nordica Hotel in the capital will do it for you – not with exhibitionists but with the naked, bleached wood flooring and minimalist furnishings of its stylishly svelte bedrooms. Stare out of your picture window down the hill, across the harbour with its distant backdrop of snow-capped peaks, and your thoughts turn to more ancient wonders: those intrepid Viking seafarers who stumbled upon this volcanic hotspot in the mid-Atlantic only 1,200 years ago.

In summer you can go whale- watching in the bay, or take a boat trip out to the puffin colony on Akurey island. An excursion inland leads to Geysir, the world's original thermal water jet, and on to the mighty Gullfoss Falls – thunderous in summer, awesome in icy, suspended animation in winter. But of all the many adventures Reykjavik folk would like you to have before sampling their famously vibrant nightlife, snowmobiling on a glacier is surely the most daredevil.

We take the all-day coach trip to S"lheimajökull, a finger of ice pointing towards the south-west coast, and getting there is an exhilaration in itself. Crossing rumpled lava fields and muddy-looking glacial rivers in which huge chunks of ice float, past cascading waterfalls to our left and mile upon mile of black sand beaches to our right, our guide keeps us entertained with epic tales from the Icelandic sagas. A 4WD mountain goat takes us on the bone-rattling ride from the coastal plain to the tip of the glacier itself where, from a little hut seemingly in the middle of nowhere, outdoor adventure company Arcanum runs its business.

The chap handing out the headgear can tell I am scared witless – everyone else has helmets of the sort you see young men on the back of Vespas wearing in quaint Italian films, but he reaches deep into his store to hand me one of those huge black visor affairs that by rights should be twinned with a Harley-Davidson. Put this on, with your snow suit and boots, thermal balaclava and biker's gloves, and you're as weighed down as an astronaut on the moon. I can barely lift my head, although I do make it outside to where the snowmobiles are parked. These two-man monsters are twice the size of a Harley and three times as terrifying.

As our leader gestures towards the throttle, gears and brakes, shouts that we should avoid stalling on an uphill stretch and lean inwards to balance the things should we start slipping sideways down a slope, I come to a small but significant decision: I want to live to enjoy dinner. So as the others tear off up the glacier in a near white-out, I retreat to the stove in the hut, contenting myself with the little frisson of fear that comes with reading of the bubbling vulcanism beneath Iceland's ice sheets.

An hour and a cup of coffee later, the snowmobilers reappear, hyped up and whooping. "Awesome" is the gist, even if two of them fell off. I don't envy them.

Once safely back in the capital, dinner is called for. Ours proves a leisurely affair. Add in a bar crawl and a nightclub or two and evenings here can go on beyond five in the morning, even if a beer costs £5 a go and cocktails twice that.

The Seafood Cellar in the old town offers such wonders as scallops "Brokeback Mountain" (with truffles and goats cheese) and lobster bisque "Laboratory" (with lemongrass, ginger and rosemary) on its regular menu. But tuna tartare in Indian spices, butter-poached lobster with spinach potato tikki, mint and pistachio-topped tandoori Icelandic lamb and curried banana ice-cream are the tastes on offer for our visit, courtesy of Wikram Garg, executive chef at Asian fusion restaurant Inde Bleu in Washington DC.

Garg is in town for the annual Food and Fun Festival – an enticement to chefs, foodies and weekend breakers to visit in the third week in February. At around £50 a head, excluding wine, this is no cheap thrill, but it is a lot more fun than side-stepping crevasses.

We take the trip to Geysir and Gullfoss the following day, past more steaming hillsides, through valleys dotted red and green with tin-roofed farmhouses, past grazing sheep and shaggy Icelandic ponies, across lava fields and, late in the afternoon as the sun is setting, over the dramatic crunch point where North America and Europe collide – a huge wall of rock pushed up over millennia by clashing tectonic plates. Ice, snow, fire, subterranean rumblings: this is raw, exciting stuff.

Another meal (a stunning modern French tasting menu at Silfur, in the fabulous art deco Hotel Borg downtown) and a pub crawl later, courtesy of an outfit called Nightlife Friend, and it is time to leave. Weekend break? We've barely started. sm

Factfile reykjavik, iceland

How to get there

n Icelandair (tel: [phone], www.icelandair.co.uk) flies from Glasgow to Reykjavik twice weekly from £160 return, including taxes.

WHERE TO STAY

n The Hilton Nordica (tel: [phone], www.reykjaviknordica @hilton.com) has three-night winter breaks from £299 per person, including flights, until the end of March.

AND THERE'S MORE

n Reykjavik Excursions (tel: [phone], www.re.is) runs full-day glacier adventure tours to S"lheimajökull for ISK19,000 (£150) and half-day trips to Geysir and Gullfoss Falls for ISK5,800 (£45). The Flybus Blue Lagoon Express service between Keflavik airport and Reykjavik centre goes via the famous thermal pool. Price including entry ISK4,400 (£35).

n The Seafood Cellar, Aoalstraeti 2, Reykjavik (tel: [phone]), specialises in Asian fusion cuisine, from ISK6,000 (£48) per person.

n Nightlife Friend (tel: [phone], www.nightlifefriend.com) offers guided VIP bar and club tours for ISK30,000 (£250) for up to five people.

n Scotsman Reader Holidays has an 11 day break to Iceland departing 15 June from £549. Tel: [phone] or visit www.holidays.scotsman.com