Laugarvatn Fontana
7 July 2019
Iceland is famous for its hot spring baths and spas, and of course the most famous of these is the Blue Lagoon. Blue Lagoon is certainly a beautiful looking place with its sprawling natural springs covered in mist and its elegant relaxing spa areas, but its famous status has given it a bit of a downside as well. It is really expensive, you have to pre-book an appointment time, and it can be absolutely packed with tourists. Maybe someday we will drop in on the Blue Lagoon, but on this trip we are going to focus on some of the smaller, less crowded hot springs.
Laugarvatn Fontana is one of these smaller baths, but smaller certainly does not mean inferior. It is a bit off the path to the very popular Gullfoss, yet still close enough to make it a reasonable stop point. Public swimming pools are popular in Iceland along with the hot springs, and Laugarvatn Fontana offers what feels like a combination of both. Their water is fed by the hot springs, though it is filtered into a series of small man-made pools. Some are tiled like a traditional swimming pool while some are built out with stones for a more natural feel, and the different pools have different water temperatures too. There are also saunas and lounging areas, as well as access to the lake. For about half of the price of Blue Lagoon, Laugarvatn offers many options and a great spot to relax without fighting though the crowds!
We bought our admission then went back into the locker rooms and showers. The hot springs are natural water with properties that are said to be very good for you, however the water needs to be kept natural to keep these properties. They don’t flood the pools with loads of chlorinated water here. However, that means extra care is needed to keep the water clean. It is vital (and mandatory) to shower before you enter the pools, and by shower they mean a full naked soapy shower. You can’t just rinse off while in your bathing suit, and you certainly can’t just say your suit is clean and you already showered today. Icelanders are very strict on this, as they should be. These pools and springs are an important part of Icelandic life, it is their responsibility to maintain them. Of course, some people get a bit skittish over stripping down in front of strangers. Again, coming from the Puritan based American culture, I know many who would be very uncomfortable, still even though these showers in the larger spas are gender segregated. But maintaining the health of their resource is more important than being prudish, so if you go to the hot springs in Iceland, please set aside your bashfulness, be a bit European, and get naked!
Besides, the campsite from last night didn’t have the facilities and so our last shower was back Friday morning before work. After a couple days, the nice warm shower was a welcome treat!
We walked out to the pools and settled in to one of the cooler tiled ones to start. The water was warm, and when you sat in the pool it came up to about mid-chest. They had little spots set up where you could lean back and relax in the water, and there was a spot where there was a platform you could lay just under the surface of the water to sunbathe (I obviously did not). We relaxed here for a bit before venturing down to the warmer, stony pool. Only about 10°C warmer, but after a few minutes in it was noticeable. It was 18°C outside (mid-60s F), but the water had us sweating a bit. I don’t know the science of what makes this good for you, but the whole experience did feel rather healthy.
I do have a time limit in warm water, so we decided to get out and cool down a bit. The day wasn’t cool with the wind still and sun shining, but you did feel a bit chilly going from the hot water into the open air. We walked down through the gate onto the platform down to the lake. Unlike the man-made pools, the lake was a natural water body. There are hot springs feeding into the lake, and certain spots you need to be careful as the water is boiling, but those parts are clearly marked. Where we stood the water was actually cool, reminiscent of the mountain lakes back in the Poconos I used to swim in when younger. The cool down was a great contrast to the hot pools as was the natural feel of the soft bottom under your feet. We swam a bit through the lake before the chill caught up to us, and retreated back to the warm pools.
As we were finishing up at the pools, I dropped into one of the saunas. A traditional Finnish sauna is heated with hot coals or an electric heater these days, but this sauna was built directly on top of a hot spring steam vent! The warmth and humidity inside this sauna were coming directly from the Earth below, a truly amazing experience as you sat in the steam just thinking of that concept. My time limit in the sauna is much lower than the pools even, so after a few minutes I stepped out into the cool air. The contrasts really are an incredible feeling... though I did skip the part where you can dump the bucket of ice-cold water over you!!
After another shower to rinse off (which we took our time with as we don’t know when the next will be), we went into their café. Traditionally, the Icelandic Rúgbrauð is baked by being buried in the ground near the bubbling hot spring for 24 hours, and many of these spas make their own in this way. There are tours available which we didn’t take, but we did buy a nice hunk of bread to take with us to give our camper meals a bit of traditional flavor!
