Sundhöllin is Reykjavik’s oldest public pool. Designed by Guðjón Samúelsson, who also designed Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik’s Catholic cathedral and the big church in Akureyri, it’s a Art Deco style building and was opened in 1937.
Unusually for an Icelandic pool, it’s freezing.
I visited a couple of years ago. It’s right in the centre of downtown Reykjavik and although it’s just not as good as the other two pools in the city, it’s the most characterful. The 25m pool is in a big echoey Art Deco hall and the hotpots are our on the roof, where you can watch the world go down Snorrabraut from behind frosted glass panels.
But it’s recently reopened following an extension and I just had to go and find out whether it’s in the same league as Laugadalslaug.
It has a new entrance and new changing rooms. They’re now big and light and airy instead of being small, hidden almost under the pool and leaving me with an abiding memory of dark wood panels. Proper modern changing rooms. The showers are still communal but for tourists who aren’t into the public naked shower there is a single private cubicle.
Then there’s Iceland’s big pool failing. They assume you know how to get from the showers to the pool and I don’t, even when I’ve been there before and especially because I’m not wearing my glasses. Some signs would really help.
I went at the beginning of July, straight from Þórsmörk. After many sweaty days walking and very little in the way of showers on the trail, I’d promised myself this and I washed more thoroughly than anyone in the history of Iceland before I went in the pool.
The first pool you encounter in the new outdoors area is the baby pool. It’s just deep enough that you can lie with your head on the side and your knees out of the water and just hot enough to not quite boil you but leave you grateful for the cold spring breeze on your knees. It has various watery toys in there – a big mushroom fountain at one end and a small play fountain at the other and an abundance of large toy boats and floats.
Then there’s the new hotpot. It’s trough-style, long and rectangular and reasonably deep. I think it’s marked 39C, which was a bit hot for my liking. It’s endlessly popular, though. Opposite is the cold pot, filled from a hose, and I saw people’s faces as they plunged in, so I can take a guess just how cold it is. Then there are the new sauna and steam rooms, which I didn’t investigate.
In the middle is the centrepiece, the new lane pool. Had I not been deprived of warm water for a week and felt less used-up, I might have swum in it. As it was, I decided it was too cold. But even so, I knew it wasn’t as cold as the older indoor pool and it had more than its fair share of both swimmers and loungers in it.
The old pool complex is inside and upstairs, although there’s a lift available. I’m not sure which feels weirder, scurrying up stairs wet & half-naked or getting in the lift. The hotpots upstairs are still delightful, still hot at 39C and 41C respectively and still have views over Snorrabraut. They’re just a bit too deep to get a cooling breeze on any part of your body, so I fled back to the baby pool, having checked that the indoor pool is both present and open without actually putting so much as a toe in.
In short, while the new Sundhöllin extension isn’t as extensive or fun or good as Laugadalslaug, it’s now a pretty good pool right in the city centre, saving me a bus ride & 880kr in bus fare.
Sorry there aren’t any pictures – you’re not allowed to take cameras into public pools in Iceland, although spas like the Blue Lagoon, Myvatn Nature Baths and Laugarvatn Fontana are fair game. Instead, take a look at this 30 second video from Reykjavik City.
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