The Blue Lagoon!!!
No, this isn't the Brooke Shields version, this is the real thing in Iceland! Grant was really excited to swim in the ultra warm waters of the Blue Lagoon. He does not like being cold AT ALL.
He was so excited, that he took off running up the walkway to the entrance.
There's no need to play around with a filter... that's the natural color of the silica filled waters.
When you first arrive and check in, you are told to go to the locker rooms to change and shower. And you MUST shower! Obviously no one had masks on in the locker room (those were left in the lockers) so you just wanted to shower and get out of there as fast as you could. But once you emerge from the locker rooms... look at the view!
Thinking ahead, we brought plastic bags to put our phones in because you can really damage your phone if you get any of the silica filled water on it. Of course, when you take a picture with your phone in a plastic bag, this is what it winds up looking like. I actually have one of the real waterproof pouches for my phone but I totally forgot it at home! They also sell them there, but I'm sure they're a million dollars.
So I walked around snapping a few pictures with my good phone before sending it back to the locker room. Look at this water!
Ok boys, smile for me... this is the last picture I'm taking!
Because there is a very high amount of silica in the Blue Lagoon, you're encouraged to leave your phone inside. We didn't bring our cell phones into the pool, but we DID bring two disposable waterproof cameras! The kids were like whaaaat....
Of course, this is the quality you will get with two disposable waterproof cameras!!! At least the subjects were cute - even if their eyes are closed (I swear they are doing this on purpose!)
Todd was hilarious - he said, "These look like a bunch of pictures from the 70s!" True! In defense of some of these pictures, one camera got a bit of moisture under the plastic near the lens and the other didn't. So one set of pictures came out better than the other.
Well, it's as good as it's gonna get - me with my babies in the Blue Lagoon!
Well that's a little better. Look at my cute family!
We swam around the entire lagoon for a bit which hovers somewhere around 38 degree C (or about 100F) although it fluctuates a bit in different parts of the pool (some areas are 36C and some are up to 40C). Grant gives the warm waters a thumbs up! (That other guy though, is gonna have some problems with his phone!)
We swam under the bridge with a brief pause for a cute picture. No one had any problem standing in any part of the lagoon. And as you can see here, it was fairly easy to avoid close contact with other humans.
This picture actually turned out pretty decent - you can very easily see the white silica from the water staining the side of the old volcanic rock, likely a biproduct of a fairly recent (!!) eruption around these parts in 1226.
The Blue Lagoon is 70% sea water and 30% fresh water. She is 100% blue raspberry slushie!
And a yummy cherry slushie for Grant!
I have to post two Bailey family selfies at happy hour in the Blue Lagoon because Grant is halfway hidden by Natalie here.
And then we can only see half of Natalie's face here in this picture! It's hard to take a selfie with a disposable camera!
Todd is holding me up by my locked arms here. Look, I'm taller than him!
We spent most of the day in this little nook, not too far from the swim up bar. It was quiet and free from other people, and we had a great time relaxing in the warm water.
A sibling selfie was the last picture taken on one of the cameras.
After a few hours, we finally agreed we were all getting pretty water logged and hungry, so once we showered and got back into regular clothes, we went to the little cafe inside the Blue Lagoon that sold sandwiches and such. It was also a chance to get back to the higher quality iPhone!
The Blue Lagoon water is known as geothermal water - meaning it's the earth that heats it up naturally. There's fresh water being pumped in about every 48 hours, so it doesn't feel gross! However, it's still essentially (ha) a waste water dump for the nearby Svartsengi power plant. The water is not usable by the plant due to the mineral content, so they send it over here. There's nothing wrong with it at all, but they can't use it as heating water because the minerals cause problems in the pipelines.
Time for $100 ham sandwiches! There is also a couple of restaurants here, but those were way more expensive and fancier. Plus, with increasing Covid numbers in Iceland, we would rather sit outside. Besides, look how pretty the weather was!
We had a nice lunch view of the swim up bar where people were waiting to buy drinks!
Alas, it was finally time to leave. I would do this again in a heartbeat - it was so warm and beautiful!
The man-made lagoon extends beyond the limits of the spa and it feels like you are truly in another world.
Bailey family selfie outside of the Blue Lagoon!
The silica is fascinating to me. It's very slimy if too much is built up!
What planet have I gone to?
Todd took a panorama of the area, as he always does. We sadly did not get to do any of the mud treatments because we didn't feel comfortable with so many people putting their hands in the mud that is supplied by the spa. There's a little swim up mud mask bar that you can sample the treatments, but eh. Maybe in a non-Covid world, if that ever exists.
Swirling cooled lava and rocks.
Hey, how did you get here? Hard to believe anything could grow in this harsh landscape!
Goodbye, Blue Lagoon!
We spotted this in the parking lot of the Blue Lagoon as we were leaving. We saw a few of these and we are still scratching our heads. Did they ship their car here from Germany? That's a German license plate! We were happy to see something so familiar.
One last Bailey family selfie in front of the famous entrance sign.
The Blue Lagoon is surrounded by literally nothing but rocks and moss. It looks like a mossy covered moon!
As I mentioned, the Reykjanes Peninsula had a series of six volcanoes blow up in 1226 and land was defined by it.
The Fagradalsfjall volcano isn't too far from the Blue Lagoon although we decided not to go because although you can hike to the active crater, it seemed like a very difficult hike for a couple of kids. Maybe next time because I'd love to see another active volcano!
We took the long way back to Reykjavik so that we could swing by the Bridge Between Continents or Brúin milli heimsálfa in Icelandic.
Hey look! It's a big gap between the North American (to the right) and Eurasian (to the left) continental plates!
North America is moving west and away from Eurasia, hence the gap here. Grant, is that you under all of that hair?
If you do it just right, you can take pictures that make it look like you're holding up the bridge!
Well.... close enough!
Meanwhile, these clowns were being silly wedged down there between North America and Eurasia.
Grant looked small compared to the continents.
That was some bright sunshine! We got really lucky with the weather on our trip.
The continents are drifting apart at the rate of about 1 inch per year and it creates cracks in the surrounding terrain - one of which Natalie is standing in.
I walked to North America to take this picture.
Todd and Grant eventually rejoined us after their jaunt in the crevasse but not before snapping this pic of me and Natalie on the North American side.
One of the best things about Iceland is that you can see a million things because nothing takes very long to see. In under 30 minutes, we had read and seen all we could about the Bridge Between Continents, so we were on our merry (and desolate) way back to Reykjavik.
The Blue Lagoon is over there somewhere! And so is the volcano! It's flat for miles here.
Eventually we returned to the apartment where we noticed we had a visitor outside. There were a bunch of (stray?) cats roaming around our neighborhood.
The wildlife will find a way to grow, even between the rocks.
Just outside of our neighborhood is the pretty Lutheran church Háteigskirkja. Construction only began in the early 1950s and it was finally consecrated in 1965.
WHAT THE WHAT. This is Yellow Loosestrife and it's native (!) to Central Europe and Asia Minor according to my plant identifier app. I LOVE this pretty flower!
We were not directly in the center of the city (we prefer to be close, but not TOO close!) but even from out here, you can still see the spire of the Hallgrimskirkja.
We grabbed a SUPER yummy dinner from Potturinn og Pannan which was down the street from our apartment. I had the Tagliatelle Aglio E Olio and it was fantastic. Probably the best cherry tomatoes I've ever had (I ate them right up, which is why you don't see any here!) Meanwhile, Todd made the kids burgers on the stove.
Foreign currency is always funny to us, especially those who have high currency values. This looks like we are super rich, but it's really only about $76 or so.
Until next time Blue Lagoon! What a beautiful day!
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