Located halfway between Keflavik Airport and Reyjavik amidst endless lava fields, the Blue Lagoon is billed as one of Iceland's biggest attractions. For all of the external hype, the road to the site is uncluttered by shouting billboards. Instead one simply arrives at a modest-sized parking lot full of a few tour buses parked near some unasssuming buildings and a geothermal power plant. The Lagoon is the glamorous consort to the utterly pragmatic power plant. Both derive their heat from the magma below.
The entrance is well-designed, moving the customer from the parking lot to the spa via a tactically meandering path that winds through walls of basalt boulders toward the entrance. It's all preparation for what is to come. At the front desk you will be offered several options. Stay sharp. There is the basic entrance for about 4300 krona, entrance plus a towel for 4800 or the PACKAGE for more.
The weather this late July day was 50 degrees F with a pelting sideways rain, strong winds and fog. Note the "lifeguard" on deck. Note too the dark basalt walls that underlay and surround this spa of spas. Bathers can help themselves to aluminum vats of milky white, paste-like silica mud to slather on needy faces. Directions say to let it dry and rinse it off. Not today. The unrelenting rain rinses us clean in under two minutes. We are in the North Atlantic after all.
