Explore Southwestern Iceland
The Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland’s southwestern extremity, provides most visitors with their first look at the country, as they exit Keflavík’s international airport and follow the multi-lane expressway Route 41 east towards Reykjavík. Unfortunately, local vistas are unremittingly barren – rough, contoured piles of lava and distant peaks, the rocks only coloured by lichen and mosses – and most people leave Reykjanes behind without a second thought. But if you’ve a few hours to fill in – before a flight, perhaps – the peninsula has plenty to offer, and is conveniently close to the capital: there’s the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s most renowned hot spa; a museum at Grindavík to that great Icelandic icon, the cod; a trans-continental bridge near Hafnir; plus plenty of wild, rocky coastline with associated birdlife and lonely ruins.
Main roads through the region are sealed, with a few short gravel stretches out to some sights. Buses run daily all year from Reyjavík to Keflavík and the airport, and from Reyjavík to the Blue Lagoon and Grindavík; elsewhere you’ll need your own vehicle or to arrange a tour from the capital.
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The Blue Lagoon
The Blue Lagoon
Known in Icelandic as Bláa lónið, the Blue Lagoon is Iceland’s most trumpeted geothermal spa, a surreal splash of colour and warmth amidst a bleak satanic wilderness of black lava rubble. It’s also a shameless tourist rip-off, though worth the price once for the experience: on cold days, when thick fog swirls over the warm, milky-blue water, your hair, dampened by vapour, freezes solid.
Blue Lagoon is actually artificial, dug into the middle of a flat expanse of black lava blocks and filled by outflow from the nearby Svartsengi thermal power station. Svartsengi taps into steam vents fed by sea water seeping down into subterranean hot pots, and by the time it emerges at Blue Lagoon it has cooled to a comfortable 38˚C. There are decoratively positioned caves and arches, a sauna, and the famous silvery-grey silt, said to cure skin disorders – Icelanders scoop handfuls off the bottom and smear it all over their bodies, and the shop sells beauty products made from it. Whatever the effects on your skin, hair takes a real battering from the lagoon’s enriched mineral content; rub conditioner in as protection before bathing.
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The Bridge Between Two Continents
The Bridge Between Two Continents
About 2km south from the Hafnaberg car park, the Bridge Between Two Continents is a thin steel span in the middle of nowhere, supposedly crossing the rift separating the North American and Eurasian continental plates. “Contrived” doesn’t begin to describe it, but the idea is fun and it’s perked up by “Welcome to America” and “Welcome to Europe” signs that greet you as you cross. The bridge is decked in steel mesh, so you can look down into the ravine below along the way, though this isn’t especially deep or at all dangerous – you can easily walk through it from either end and pass under the bridge.
