STUCK IN REYKJAVIK & THE BLUE LAGOON: WAS IT WORTH IT?

OCTOBER 2019

In this blogpost I will write about our experience in Reykjavik & The Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon was on my bucket list for years and I was super excited to finally visit it! The Blue Lagoon is dubbed as an expensive tourist trap and in this blogpost you will discover our opinion.

Stuck in Reykjavik

We arrived in Reykjavik from Hofn for a quick walk around town, not knowing that our flight to New York would be severely delayed and that we would have lots of extra time in Reykjavik. Reykjavik has a good vibe and seems a little more cozy than the other towns where we stayed, because of the diversity of buildings and colors. Reykjavik recently had a gay parade and you could still see rainbows painted everywhere, which I loved of course! I immediately found the gay bar which was painted as a rainbow (see below). Reykjavik also has some good street art, which I unfortunately didn’t take any pictures of, expecting to be back tomorrow. To be honest you can see most of Reykjavik in a few hours, but it is also fun to stay the night and make use of the modern restaurants (which you will hardly find in other spots in Iceland).

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Hallgrimskirkja: Of course we had to visit the modern church Hallgrimskirkja. It certainly is a church like we hadn’t seen yet. It is a church made from concrete (!). The bell tower actually is quite beautiful, we were surprised to like it from the outside. The inside of the church was a bit lackluster, but it was still interesting to see how they even made the roof arches from concrete.

Harpa: Harpa is the concert and conference building of Reykjavik and we were super impressed by the amazing modern architecture. If you are an architecture lover like us, you have to visit Harpa! It has a beautiful facade with colored glass, which you can view from the outside and the inside. It is free to enter and we wandered around for over an hour admiring the building.

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Hlemmur Food Hall: I always like to visit Food Halls, so I had to visit this recommendation from a friend. The Hlemmur Food Hall is located right in the city center, next to the bus station, so really easy to find. The food hall is a nice way to eat out in Iceland without breaking the bank. We paid 1890 ISK for our tacos, which were really tasty and filled us up enough. They have a happy hour until 6PM, with beer for 800 ISK and wine for 1000 ISK.

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Street art: Reykjavik also jumped on the street art bandwagon and throughout the city you can find lots of street art. If you start on the main shopping street (Laugavegur) you will find lots of cool, colorful murals.

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Our visit to the Blue Lagoon

First things first: I was a bit taken aback by the entrance fee to the Blue Lagoon. When we visited, the entrance fee was about € 80.. which is an awful lot. You can visit cheaper, if you visit later in the afternoon, but the Blue Lagoon does close pretty earlier in the shoulder season. To be fair, I think the high price is the only downside to the Blue Lagoon. I absolutely loved our visit to the Blue Lagoon… Hielke was enthusiastic as well. We visited at 8AM, hoping there would be no crowds. The crowds weren’t bad at all when we visited, but it would have also been fine to visit at 10AM. The Blue Lagoon is really big, so it is no problem at all when many people visit.

We bought our tickets online and bought the cheapest tickets; these include towels, a drink of your choice at the pool bar and a face mask. I was in complete awe during our whole visit, I loved the super blue water and the contrast with the mossy, lava rocks.

It is good to know that you shouldn’t wet your hair at the Blue Lagoon. Because of the high level of Silica your hair will become unmanageable if it gets wet. To protect your hair the Blue Lagoon advises to put conditioner in your hair when you enter the lagoon. I took some quick pictures without conditioner in my hair and afterwards put the conditioner in my hair. I expected the Blue Lagoon to be less relaxed because you can’t get your hair wet, but I still found it really relaxing. The Secret Lagoon, which we also visited, is much hotter and I liked getting my hair wet in the Secret Lagoon because of that… In the end it didn’t botter me in the Blue Lagoon.

Concluding, I really loved our visit! It is really easy to visit the Blue Lagoon if you just have a short stay in Iceland, as it is located closely to the airport. The also have facilities to store your luggage if necessary. If you love the pictures of the blue water just as much as I do, I would absolutely recommend to go (maybe later in the day when it’s cheaper). If your heart does not beat quicker when it sees pictures of the Blue Lagoon, it is way too expensive to go and it will feel like a tourist trap.

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