Aurora Reykjavík — The Northern Lights Center

The core of the visit is the film. Auroras filmed in different parts of Iceland run on a big screen, one after another. You see the range of colour and shape the sky can produce, not one postcard version of it.

Around the theatre the exhibition splits in two: the physics of the aurora, and the Icelandic folklore that explained it first. A VR headset adds a third view of the same thing. The practical part is the camera advice — how to set a camera for the lights, which is the difference between a photograph and a smear. Staff at the desk follow current conditions and will tell you what the sky is doing. Even the toilet has a screen playing aurora footage.

• Go before the hunt, not after — the forecasts, the camera settings and the folklore are all worth more the night before you go out than the morning after.
• The exhibition is compact — one visitor felt it was short for what the ticket costs.
• Weatherproof — the whole visit is indoors, so it is the fallback for a day when cloud has already cancelled the sky.
• Fine with children — the exhibits are interactive and pitched at all ages.

Arriving by car is the simple option: the car park belongs to the centre and sits at the building, so you step out of the car and into the exhibition. Access from the car park to the entrance is level, with no steps, which also makes it workable with a wheelchair or a pushchair.

Better: early in the trip, and on a day the weather has already ruined.

Avoid: turning up close to closing time if you want the film and the exhibits without hurrying.

The visit is entirely indoors, so cloud and rain change nothing about it. Everything the centre teaches is more useful before your first night out under the sky than after it.