Iceland’s outdoor thermal spas are hot
Soak in the area’s natural wonders — and possibly spy an elf or troll along the way
It had been a foolproof plan. To transplant my Paris-based family for a summer on the Chesapeake Bay, where I grew up, we would meet my mother “halfway” in Iceland and enjoy the famous stopover that Icelandair has marketed brilliantly over the past few years. We’d then continue the voyage with a doting grandmother to help entertain a (possibly) unruly toddler. A bonus: the gradual adjustment to a new time zone, since Iceland is two hours behind France, making for an easier arrival on the East Coast.
But then I trawled a trio of weather websites that all predicted constant downpours and temperatures hovering around 10 C in July. Despite all the admonitions to pack light, bags would be stretched to the seams with rain gear, hats, maybe even winter coats. I went on the site for the Blue Lagoon — the geothermal spa pool that’s the country’s most famous attraction — and found that reservations were booked solid for our arrival time. Had Iceland become a victim of its own tourism success?
We stepped off the plane at 9 a.m. into an airport that’s a showcase for sleek Nordic design, where Mom was waiting. We quickly learned that taxis to Reykjavik, a good hour’s drive away, could cost upwards of 100 euros, so a rental car made the most sense. But a line snaked around the terminal from the rental-car kiosks. And patience was wearing thin — thankfully, a smoothie made from skyr (yogurt) took the edge off the kids’ hunger.
Salvation appeared in the form of an Icelander named Heidar Mar, driving a four-wheel-drive SUV. Mom had arrived the day before, sleeping at a lovely lodging near the airport called the Hotel Berg. Perched on the cliffs facing the fishing harbour in Keflavik, the familyowned hotel also arranges car rentals. On the phone, Heidar Mar was a man of few words. He would check on availability and call us back. Instead, less than 10 minutes later, he was waiting outside the terminal with a smile. He raised an eyebrow at the back-breaking weight of the luggage — piled precariously on the trolley — and without a word stacked it into the trunk of his car, the stroller blocking the rear view. “The car I had in mind might be too small,” he said.
When Iceland’s economy crashed in 2008, and the krona took a nosedive against the U.S. dollar, an expensive destination was suddenly put into reach for the average traveller. Over the past seven years, Iceland has successfully transformed an economic downturn into a tourism boom with a savvy marketing campaign depicting the cinematic landscapes — volcanoes, northern lights, glaciers and waterfalls — that make Iceland a paradise of natural phenomena. With expanded flight routes serving destinations across North America, Icelandair continues to offer competitive prices. Plus, the new Iceland-based Wow Air is upping the ante with $99 fares. Today you won’t find the bargain hotel and food prices that were the norm after the financial crisis, but Iceland continues to reign atop travellers’ bucket lists.
Iceland’s appeal is multi-faceted; there’s a rocking nightlife, a dynamic arts and music scene, sigh-inducing natural beauty, and even the cuisine is making a name for itself. For us, it was perfect for family travel, providing excitement and fun for three generations.
Beyond all this, it was the Icelanders who won us over. I knew I’d fall for a country where a Pirate Party politician rapped a song in Parliament, where descendants of fierce Vikings vocalize their beliefs in elves and trolls, and where there are no surnames — last names are a father’s (or mother’s) first name with the addition of -dottir (daughter) or -son.
Quirky Icelandic wit threads through all aspects of culture; we were amused to learn about a new tourist offering, a guided tour called “Bankers Behind Bars,” which traces the causes and consequences of the banking system’s 2008 collapse. (Yes, several officials actually went to jail.) Magnus Sveinn Helgason, who leads the walks, was quoted as saying: “What could be more exciting than the story of how a tiny country was turned into a giant hedge fund, only to blow up?”
An apartment rental with Reykjavik4You was the most cost-effective way to sleep a family of four in the city centre. Just a few steps away from a grocery store, our two-bedroom apartment came with a fully equipped kitchen, a parking space and thoughtful amenities such as a Nokia cellphone for free calls. The apartment’s extra space also allowed us to adjust to the different jet-lag circumstances; Mom needed to sleep later, but the girls would be up at 4 a.m. Luckily, the flat-screen TV came with a DVD player and a stack of U.S. DVDs.
From here, we could stroll through Old Town to Hallgrimskirkja, the landmark concrete church, or to the waterfront to try the famous hotdogs, smothered in fried onions, at Baejarins Beztu Pylsur. Reykjavik can be equated to a mid-size American town, so it wasn’t hard to find the Sundhöllin public pool, designed in art deco style. My girls love nothing more than swimming, and Iceland is chock-full of swimming pools, many filled with geothermally heated water. But leave your modesty behind! In Iceland, it’s mandatory to strip naked and shower before taking a dip. We forgot to take towels, and there were none available to rent. Who knew paper towels and blow dryers could provide such amusement to a two-year-old and five-year-old?
As the rain poured down, we were the first visitors to Whales of Iceland when it opened in the morning. Launched in late February of this year, the privately owned museum is a vast warehouse space exhibiting replicas of all the different species. Face-to-face with a leviathan, hanging in the blue-tinged light, the girls shrieked with delight.
“We want to give visitors a feeling of wonder, bestowing a personal connection to whales and perhaps inspiring a desire to preserve whales in their natural environment,” says Parker O’Halloran, a U.S. expat who works as a shift manager.
At Landnámssýningin (the Settlement Exhibition) — built around the ruins of an original Viking longhouse — Mom and I gleaned insights into the AD 874 settlement, while the girls coloured at a designated children’s table. We learned about the country’s rich literary tradition — peering at centuriesold manuscripts detailing the “sagas” — and also about the Viking greed for timber. (Iceland’s treeless landscape is not entirely due to natural causes, and today there is a big problem with erosion caused by deforestation.)
Sagas could also be written about the glories of the Icelandic road trip. And with a rental car, we could explore at our own pace. The most popular day trip is the Golden Circle route, which encompasses three sites: geysers in the geothermal valleys of Haukadalur, the Gullfoss waterfall, and Thingvellir National Park.
Why push the “must-sees” and risk the possible meltdown after the two-year-old’s skipped nap? Instead, we chose one site and lingered. Thingvellir is a UNESCO World Heritage site of captivating beauty. It’s here where two tectonic plates converge. The resulting rift valley — dotted with waterfalls and craggy cliffs — is where the Vikings, in AD 930, held their first general assembly, the world’s first democratically elected government body.
As we strolled the trails, I kept the girls on their best behaviour by warning of hungry trolls lurking off the path. Across Iceland, bizarre rock formations are said to be trolls frozen into stone when they ventured into daylight.
Iceland is rife with turbulent natural wonders: brooding volcanoes, exploding geysers, shifting glaciers, celestial lights dancing across the firmament. Faced with this — not to mention extreme weather patterns — is it any wonder that so many Icelanders believe in Huldufólk, or hidden people, like elves and trolls? Who can blame them for diverting road construction projects around “elf habitat”? The documentary film Investigation Into the Invisible World, presented at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, interviews former Icelandic president Vigdís Finnbogadóttir: “No one has proven the existence” of invisible beings, she said, “but no one has proven the existence of God, either.”
Geologically, Iceland is the youngest country on Earth, still in the process of creation. Here, we could witness the dramatic topography that’s fuelled so many dreamers and artists. As the girls slept in the back seat of the car, we circled Thingvellir’s lake, the largest in Iceland. There was no one on the road, and we noticed a few solitary fishermen knee-deep in the water. We marvelled at the vast, treeless expanse over which volcanic mountains loomed. Steam rose from the moss-covered earth, and we passed a number of geothermal power plants, such as Nesjavellir. Surrounding it: a moonscape straight out of Tolkien’s fantasy world.
We did make it to the Blue Lagoon, a requisite, if overcrowded, “must” on the Iceland itinerary. Tickets were expensive (about $147 for two adults), but the kids didn’t want to get out of the water. And so, by the time we arrived at Hotel Berg to return the car, Heidar Mar was forced to speed to the airport to make sure we didn’t miss our flight. We joked that the car hadn’t driven that fast in four days.