Iceland - The Two Lagoons
Mar. 1st, 2025 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
I went to two different hot spring/spa places on my Iceland trip - one on the first day and one on the last.
The Blue Lagoon is the original and the most famous. Conveniently, it's also just a twenty minute drive from Iceland's international airport, and in the right direction for everything, since the airport's out on a peninsula. When you've just got off a plane and your hotel check-in is hours away, a shower and a soak in a hot spring isn't a bad starter plan :-)
Outside the blue lagoon spa, there are shallow mineral-dense hot pools. And also a large pumping station, that sends hot water to buildings for heating and showers.
And then there's the spa part where the people soak, and sip cocktails. Although the water is local and natural, it's pumped into an artificial pool so people aren't walking barefoot on lava rock.
Me, my sister, niece and nephew in lovely warm water :-)
And you do the mud mask thing.
Sky Lagoon that I went to on the final day is a lot newer than Blue Lagoon, closer to Reykjavik itself, and there's a lot of thought gone into the design of it. This isn't a 'natural' hot spring, as there aren't any in the area, so the water's pumped in from elsewhere. But the same is true of the Blue Lagoon, of course, even if they don't have to pump it as far.
Where at the Blue Lagoon, you can see the buildings with the changing rooms, cafe and everything, at Sky Lagoon those are all buried into the hillside. So you walk in through a door under a turf roof, and walk out into the pool down some steps in an artificial cave. The whole thing has been designed to give the illusion of being in a natural spring, with nothing but rocks (some real, some fake), grass and ocean to see.
It's also been designed with a lot of 'coves' in the rocks, so even though the place was almost as busy as Blue Lagoon, you could find a more secluded corner where it seemed much less crowded.
The pool area has an infinity pool edge overlooking the sea.
Sky Lagoon also has a 'seven step' alternating hot and cold procedure. You start out in the large warm pool, then take a cold pool plunge (I'll admit I half chickened out of that one - I only went in up to my hips, I didn't fully immerse ::shiver::). Step three is a sauna, which was actually my first time in one, and damn, they were nice saunas. Built out over the sea with one entirely glass wall, so you're sitting there steaming and watching the ocean and boats and seabirds.
After the sauna, there's a cold mist room, which unlike the cold pool was actually really nice. It's a large room with a lot of shower heads and seats around, and you get sprayed with basically a light drizzle while you sit there.
Step five is a mineral scrub, where you coat your body in stuff, then into another sauna for step six, still wearing the scrub. Showers to wash all the scrub off are the last part, and then they give you a thimble of crowberry juice and cold tea which sounds absolutely vile but tastes really nice.
After all that, you go back out into the main pool and chill for as long as you want :-)
Of the two places, Sky Lagoon was considerably classier, and the Seven Step thing was actually really lovely to do. I'd definitely go back there.
And then three hours after I was soaking under glorious if chilly blue skies at Sky Lagoon, it was completely overcast and snowing.
Welcome to Iceland!
The Blue Lagoon is the original and the most famous. Conveniently, it's also just a twenty minute drive from Iceland's international airport, and in the right direction for everything, since the airport's out on a peninsula. When you've just got off a plane and your hotel check-in is hours away, a shower and a soak in a hot spring isn't a bad starter plan :-)
Outside the blue lagoon spa, there are shallow mineral-dense hot pools. And also a large pumping station, that sends hot water to buildings for heating and showers.
And then there's the spa part where the people soak, and sip cocktails. Although the water is local and natural, it's pumped into an artificial pool so people aren't walking barefoot on lava rock.
Me, my sister, niece and nephew in lovely warm water :-)
And you do the mud mask thing.
Sky Lagoon that I went to on the final day is a lot newer than Blue Lagoon, closer to Reykjavik itself, and there's a lot of thought gone into the design of it. This isn't a 'natural' hot spring, as there aren't any in the area, so the water's pumped in from elsewhere. But the same is true of the Blue Lagoon, of course, even if they don't have to pump it as far.
Where at the Blue Lagoon, you can see the buildings with the changing rooms, cafe and everything, at Sky Lagoon those are all buried into the hillside. So you walk in through a door under a turf roof, and walk out into the pool down some steps in an artificial cave. The whole thing has been designed to give the illusion of being in a natural spring, with nothing but rocks (some real, some fake), grass and ocean to see.
It's also been designed with a lot of 'coves' in the rocks, so even though the place was almost as busy as Blue Lagoon, you could find a more secluded corner where it seemed much less crowded.
The pool area has an infinity pool edge overlooking the sea.
Sky Lagoon also has a 'seven step' alternating hot and cold procedure. You start out in the large warm pool, then take a cold pool plunge (I'll admit I half chickened out of that one - I only went in up to my hips, I didn't fully immerse ::shiver::). Step three is a sauna, which was actually my first time in one, and damn, they were nice saunas. Built out over the sea with one entirely glass wall, so you're sitting there steaming and watching the ocean and boats and seabirds.
After the sauna, there's a cold mist room, which unlike the cold pool was actually really nice. It's a large room with a lot of shower heads and seats around, and you get sprayed with basically a light drizzle while you sit there.
Step five is a mineral scrub, where you coat your body in stuff, then into another sauna for step six, still wearing the scrub. Showers to wash all the scrub off are the last part, and then they give you a thimble of crowberry juice and cold tea which sounds absolutely vile but tastes really nice.
After all that, you go back out into the main pool and chill for as long as you want :-)
Of the two places, Sky Lagoon was considerably classier, and the Seven Step thing was actually really lovely to do. I'd definitely go back there.
And then three hours after I was soaking under glorious if chilly blue skies at Sky Lagoon, it was completely overcast and snowing.
Welcome to Iceland!
no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 08:52 pm (UTC)The new lagoon looks much more appealing, and you obviously had a great time there. Winter would be the perfect time to visit that :)
Did you see any live lava on your trip?
no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 12:54 am (UTC)Winter in the hot springs is really nice. Even though the air temperature's near freezing, there's so much heat rising from the pools that the bits of you not in the water don't get cold.
No lava - Iceland seems to have gone quiet again, at least the parts accessible within a day or so's drive of Reykjavik. Anything could be happening in the northeast and I wouldn't know.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-03 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-09 12:15 pm (UTC)Cocktails!?!
We've had Iceland pretty high on our Euro travel priority list, admittedly influenced by seeing the blue lagoon spa on The Amazing Race. But they never told us about cocktails while in the water! *g*
Those are fantastic pictures of you guys in the water! Looks like such a joyful trip.
Am I getting this right that you had day passes for both those spas? When we looked into actually staying at the blue lagoon, we had a little OUCH moment in terms of price, and figured we might have to rearrange our priority list. *g* But if one doesn't actually have to stay there to enjoy the spa...