Head less than a mile west from the city centre and you reach a red and white lighthouse, a lava-strewn beach and a windswept golf course.

BBC: Mini guide to excursions from Reykjavik

Hawa Beach, near the candy-stripe lighthouse on the headland, may be the liveliest.

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At Start Point the ghost of Henry Muge, a pirate executed on the beach below in 1581, is said to stalk the lighthouse.

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