French woman makes 80th Iceland visit after decades of promotion

French visitor Catherine Ulrich has travelled to Iceland 80 times since her first trip in 1992, according to mbl.is. She was 50 at the time and quickly became captivated by the country, returning several times a year over the past 34 years.

Ulrich is president of Alsace-Islande, an association founded in 2004 to strengthen ties between France and Iceland through exhibitions, conferences, concerts, study events, films and travel. She has given numerous lectures about Iceland, organised photography and sales exhibitions featuring Icelandic crafts, and arranged trips for groups.

She first travelled around Iceland in 1992 and soon decided to return with schoolchildren. In 1994, she brought a choir and a children’s symphony orchestra, including 57 young people, to Iceland. They sang at services in Vestmannaeyjar and Árbæjarkirkja. A planned performance in Selfoss drew no audience because everyone was watching football on television, she recalled.

Ulrich, who trained as a music teacher and has conducted orchestras and choirs across Europe, later began guiding French visitors around Iceland. She decided to learn Icelandic and started lessons in 1995 with Margrét Helga Hjartardóttir, who was then a student in Strasbourg and later directed the Kvennaskólinn choir.

She attended one hour of lessons each week, practised by thinking in Icelandic while walking, and listened to Icelandic recordings while ironing. She also learned from bus drivers during her journeys around the country. Ulrich said she was inspired to learn the language after hearing a grandfather, father and son talking in the countryside. Their voices sounded like music to her, she said, and she wanted to be able to speak with Icelanders.