Last summer, I missed the opening of Iceland’s newest lagoon by a week. Except I didn’t, they were very optimistic and didn’t actually open until two months later. That was October and here I am in mid-June finally getting to try it out!
Laugarás is on the Golden Circle, prime tourism real estate. A lot of them have sprung up in the last decade and this is the eleventh and youngest until Reykjaböð opens this summer (or maybe autumn…) in Hveragerði. We’ve already got Fontana and the Secret Lagoon on the Golden Circle, neither of which seem to have made the top three with the tourists but on the other hand, there are so many of them in the region that it could take a while to reach full lagoon absorption.
I’m always going to be interested in a new lagoon and this one claims to have a two-storey lagoon, so I’m doubly interested. I meant to combine this trip with a visit to the rebuilt regenerated Fontana but it wasn’t to be. So just Laugarás it was. I made a booking in advance for 10am, which is when it opens, hared down from Laugarvatn where I’d camped and was the first person in the lagoon!
First impression: the car park is gravel and among the trees. Bit rustic but fine. It isn’t immediately obvious where the building is but when you find it, the pattern begins right here, wood, arches and turf. Wood in Iceland can feel quite decadent, in a country with barely any trees – the early Icelanders cut them down a thousand years ago and due to the climate, they’ve never really grown back. Now, pale wood looks luxurious rather than provincial and the turf that covers the building – which is most of the modern spas – screams that this is a luxurious place.
Inside, I was shown a map and talked dizzyingly through the offerings before going off to the changing rooms. You’re not allowed to take photos in there but I was the first and only person in there so I snapped a very quick pic before anyone else turned up. Very nice, very light, very modern. The showers – didn’t take any pictures there even though I was also alone there – go back to the more concrete, more dimly-lit flavour of spa shower area. They provide their own herbal shampoo, conditioner and shower gel and I’ll note, as I always do, that the conditioner is literally worse than not using any. I can soak my hair in spa conditioner and it always feels like I’ve soaked it in paint. I definitely have one video clip from a couple of years ago of me losing my temper at the Vök conditioner and I may have a second from Fontana, where I had to resort to a mid-morning campsite shower to get the conditioner out. Laugarás’s is just as bad.
You enter the lagoon via a pool in the arched glass atrium. No walking out into the Icelandic weather here! The back of the building matches the front except that each arch has a little “bay” underneath it for sitting in the hot water with a drink. This is the upper lagoon. It’s very nice. Views over the river, the Laugarás from which the village and the lagoon take their names, views over green countryside, white bridge spanning the river to the hillock opposite. It’s all very nice. But then you start to wonder about the two-storey lagoon.
Well, in the middle of the upper lagoon is a staircase, literally in the middle of the water, which goes down under the floor of the lagoon and into the lower lagoon, emerging under a waterfall formed by the upper lagoon tumbling into the lower one. It’s quite a thing and even having seen it and walked through it several times, I can’t quite fathom how it actually works. How do you make a hole in the water?? I admit, I didn’t think to get a good photo of it so have a clip of video of me going through instead.
There are also more conventional stairs going off the side of the upper lagoon. At each end of the stairs is a bar, one for the upper lagoon and one for the lower – drinks only here, paid for with your electronic bracelet. Sometimes these places also sell waterproof phone cases or occasionally hats. No, drinks only.
The lower lagoon, which is a degree or two cooler than the upper one, is where all the fun is. On your right as you emerge from under the waterfall is the quiet zone, a small pool separated from the main lagoon by a miniature basalt column canyon. I love the concept of having a quiet zone and I love the canyon. In fact, I love that while Laugarás has clearly got all the trappings of a sleek, modern Insta-friendly lagoon designed to appeal to tourists rather than trying to impose its vision on them, it’s also trying experimental new things I’ve never seen in a lagoon before.
It’ll tell you about the infinity edge, at which point I’ll nitpick that “infinity” means a visual trick in which it seems to blend in with a bigger body of water and therefore apparently go on to infinity rather than “the water pours over the edge into a drain below”. The upper lagoon does a better job of blending in with the river. I’d shrug and say “S’pose” if they claimed an infinity edge on the upper lagoon. But no, not on the lower one.
To the left is the sauna house which I didn’t actually visit because it was too hot. There are two saunas in there and a cold plunge pool right outside. Since it was hot, I… well, I got in up to my ankles and had to return to the lagoon to get the feeling back in my feet.
Lurking behind the showers which are outside the sauna house is the forest hot tub. Despite being shown it on the map on arrival, I’d forgotten it was there. It’s very easy to overlook. It’s also very shady and would be a lovely place to hide from the (unexpected) heat of an Icelandic summer day if the water wasn’t so hot.
It was hot and it was sunny. I’m planning to tell you later why the tag for this is “This Trip Was Cursed” but suffice it to say that noticing it was sunny and putting sun cream on in the morning had not been a priority. I spent four or five hours seeking out the shady side of the bays, lurking under the waterfall and pressing my back against the wall in an attempt to protect it from the sun and found later that afternoon that although my back and shoulders were indeed not too bad, my upper arms were hot pink. That’s on me. Look at the sky and the weather forecast before spending a few hours sitting outside with a lot of skin exposed.
I liked Laugarás. At some point I’ll want to rank the eleven lagoons and decide which is best, both objectively and subjectively but Laugarás is definitely in the top 5. I knew that immediately. At some point I’ll be back in the area for Reykjaböð and the new Fontana and I reckon I’ll take advantage to come back to Laugarás.
On a slightly more serious note, they’ve got a really good contender for a very popular lagoon here. People go to the Secret Lagoon because it’s smaller, quieter, more “authentic” and, of course, cheaper. Tourists have largely overlooked Fontana so far, although I’ll be interested to see what happens when its new iteration opens. But for now, I think Laugarás is the indisputable best lagoon on the Golden Circle.
I Am A Polar Bear 