I will state up front that hot springs are not something that was high on my bucket list but was definitely on my wife’s. The first one, I enjoyed more since it was more of a private hike. We were almost alone hiking to it, a short 20 min. hike, up a beautiful valley to Seljavallalaug swimming pool, the oldest pool in Iceland.

It was built in 1923 by a local man and the purpose was to teach the Icelandic people how to swim! Now, Icelanders must know how to swim before they can graduate school [how cool is that?] but back in the 1920s this wasn’t a law, and Seljavallalaug swimming pool was born! The valley is surrounded by warm water waterfalls and a primitive piping system to feed into the pool. It was luke warm & mossy, not too inviting to me. Even my wife decided to skip it based more on the temperature than anything else.

Not long after we got there a European couple came, stripped and jumped in. We left them alone to enjoy the valley and get on to our next stop.

Reykjadalur is a much more popular & touristy destination that our earlier stop.

As you pull into the large parking lot you see the steam coming out of all the vents around the valley & hillsides.

This was our 3rd and final hike on my wife’s birthday so I tried not to complain as we made our way up a steep hillside for several miles up to a popular hot springs area. It was very warm when we got there and the winds died out so much that we were attacked by biting flies from the horses that also share the trail.

The higher you go up the warmer the water gets. We stopped at the first area with a wooded boardwalk to test the waters.

It wasn’t quite up to my wife’s temperature wants so we continued up a little further.

It got much more crowded but my wife was not going to let that keep her from getting in. She found a small area to jump in while I wandered, not really wanting to go in. Her space was eventually invaded by another tourist couple. Eventually we headed down and luckily, the winds started picking up so the flies weren’t so bad. When we got near the bottom of the trail my wife realized that she had left her jacket at the top of the trail. I was too exhausted and my foot was hurting too much to do the trail again but she was intent on getting her jacket back. She RAN back up the trail asking everyone along the way if they saw the jacket. Many said yes and told her exactly what fence it was hanging on. I found a way to kill the hour she was gone feeling a little guilty but more thirsty. A small snack bar gave me a perfect view to watch her when she came down the trail.

Once she returned starving & tired we drove to the cute little town down the road that we saw a pizza/brewery that was calling our name.

This place has great pizza, good beer and was the perfect ending before our drive back to Reykjavik. Surprisingly we had the energy to continue the party once we got back to town but that will have to be covered in another post.