I've Bean Travelling

I‘ve probably written the words amazing and incredible a million times by now, but our trip to Iceland really was awesome. After our tours through the Golden Circle and south coast, it was time to wrap up our visit to this magnificent country and head back home to Canada, which felt like another planet away.

Our last destination in Iceland was the famed geothermal spa Blue Lagoon, located south of Reykjavik near the fishing town of Grindavik. It is situated in a lava field in front of Mount Þorbjörn on Reykjanes Peninsula, a hotspot for geothermal power. The Blue Lagoon is in fact supplied by water from a nearby geothermal power station.

As recommended, we had booked our visit weeks in advance, and arranged for pick up via the Destination Blue Lagoon bus. It was about a 45 minute drive from our hotel in downtown Reykjavik to the lagoon. We purchased the Comfort package, which included one towel and a silica mud mask, as well as a drink from the swim up bar. There were luggage storage facilities for a fee.

The Blue Lagoon features a huge pool maintained at a comfortable temperature of 37-39 degrees Celsius, with a distinctive milky blue colour created by its high silica content. We spent several hours swimming around in the pool, and had fun applying our silica masks. The silica can be quite hard on the hair, so we were advised to avoid getting our heads wet; I also applied an ample amount of the supplied conditioner to avoid having straw hair later.

There was also a steam cave and a dry sauna which we visited a couple times, along with a little waterfall that we stood under for a massage. There is a spa where we could’ve booked an actual massage, but it was very expensive — as expected for Iceland — so I skipped out on that. It was pretty busy in the Lagoon especially toward the afternoon, but the pool was large enough that we were able to find plenty of space to enjoy our swim. We stayed in the water until Mr. Chuckles’ fingers turned into California raisins, and then we got ready to head off to the airport. I picked up a couple lava soaps and silica masks from the gift shop as a souvenir on the way out.

A 20 minute bus ride later, we arrived at Keflavik airport for our departure back home. We had purchased the extra legroom seats on our Icelandair flight which was worth the expense, as I absolutely hate getting squished by people reclining their seats in front of me. If only middle seats could be eliminated, it would have been an ideal flight.

We arrived in Toronto in the late evening and picked up our dog Gizmo who we had been looking forward to seeing. She took to her Paddington Bear toy immediately and has been wrestling it all week.

This ends my recap of our amazing and incredible time in London and Iceland, the perfect start to resuming international travel after a couple years being homebound. Now to plan our next trip!