Suðurhlíðar

This guide to Suðurhlíðar in Reykjavik follows a heath above the city known since the thirteen hundreds as the shieling Víkursel, where herders once grazed cattle and picked crowberries and blueberries each autumn. In 1940 and 1941, British and then American troops arrived to guard a new airfield below, digging trenches and gun emplacements into that same slope. Look for the low, dark-leaved carpet of blueberry, crowberry, and ling that still covers the ground where soldiers once stood watch.