Skip to content

I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Travel
    • By country
      • Nordic & Scandinavian
        • Denmark
        • Finland
        • Iceland
        • Norway
          • Svalbard
        • Sweden
      • Western Europe
        • Belgium
        • France
        • Ireland
        • Italy
        • Netherlands
        • UK
          • Scotland
          • Wales
      • Central Europe
        • Austria
        • Germany
        • Hungary
        • Poland
        • Switzerland
      • Eastern Europe
        • Estonia
        • Georgia
        • Latvia
        • Lithuania
        • Romania
        • Russia
        • Ukraine
      • Mediterranean
        • Croatia
        • Cyprus
        • Malta
    • By type
      • Daycations
      • Weekends away
        • Cheese & Chocolate (2026)
        • Parc Asterix (2025)
        • Christmas in London (2025)
      • Road Trips
        • A Birthday On the Ring Road (2025)
        • Accidental Ring Road (2023)
        • The Quest for a Volcano (2022)
      • Train Adventures
        • The Original Spa (2025)
        • Great German Spa Towns (2025)
        • The Eras Train Tour (2024)
      • Short Breaks
        • The Romanian Do-Over (2025)
        • A Short Trip to Pula (2025)
        • Reykjavik in Black & White (2024)
      • Longer Trips
        • Traversing Cyprus & Georgia (2024)
        • The Russian Odyssey (2019)
        • The Laugavegur Diaries (2018)
      • Year Abroad
      • School Trips
    • Unique Places to Stay
  • Adventures
    • Water
    • Snow
    • Land
    • Height
    • Indoors
      • Girlguiding
  • Wellness
  • YouTube

Category: Useful Iceland Maps

Where can I swim in Iceland? | iamapolarbear.com

Where can I swim in Iceland?

June 16, 2022

Another addition to the Iceland Map Hub! This shows just about everywhere you can swim in Iceland, all on a lovely map! People don’t necessarily think of Iceland as a swimming destination. Perhaps they think of the Blue Lagoon but nothing else. However, just about every settlement has a pool, the pools are almost all … More Where can I swim in Iceland?

Leave a comment Where can I swim in Iceland?
I found every supermarket in Iceland | iamapolarbear.com

I found every supermarket in Iceland

February 21, 2022

Consider this post the launch of my new Iceland Hub! People know me for Iceland, both on social media and in real life and although there’s so much Iceland content here, I don’t really make it as prominent as I could, so now there’s a whole pretty page dedicated to gathering it all up together in … More I found every supermarket in Iceland

1 Comment I found every supermarket in Iceland

Who am I?
I'm Julie, a travel, adventure and wellness blogger. I love Iceland, I love jumping into hot water and I do love a bit of snow.

  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Bluesky

Most popular posts

  • A night bath at Rudas
  • Zedwell Capsule Hotel review: what's it like to sleep in a coffin?
  • Chocolate Wars: British vs Finnish chocolate
  • The Guide Camp Kit List part two: the camp blanket
  • Is the biggest spa in Europe overrated? My day at Therme București
♨️ Which is the best geothermal lagoon / pool / tourist-oriented experience in Iceland? As a student I visited Chateau de Chillon and somehow managed to believe that Lord Byron wrote a famous poem about his time as a prisoner - well, he was “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. Of course he’d spent time in a Swiss dungeon. But of course, he hadn’t. He’d visited a castle while on holiday, written a poem about an actual prisoner and turned the place into one of Switzerland’s biggest tourist attractions. And I do mean big - there are 48 rooms detailing its history from Savoy to today via Bern and Lausanne, as a defensive structure, a luxury lakeside residence and yes, a tourist attraction. I was at the station in Lausanne, thinking about the old days when I lived here with my “triplets” 20 years ago and then five minutes later, one of them messaged me. This selfie, by the way, is one I took to send to her down by the lake, hence the awkward wave. Because it’s 2026, I’m calling this Switzerland in analogue instead of on film. This is the result of taking my film camera with me and actually getting through a full roll (last year, I managed 24 photos between May and December and carried that thing around far more often than I actually used it). It’s a mixed bag in which you only get to see the better ones. The blog from Thursday also features the film photos, plus a few of the nearly-terrible ones, in case there aren’t enough brown grainy pictures right here. #analogue #analog #35mmfilm This one was on the blog almost before I got back to Switzerland but it’s time it went on Instagram too. I went snowshoeing! It was in the dark, following a trail of lanterns through a snowstorm and finished up in a mountain restaurant with traditional fondue or rösti before taking the cogwheel train back down to the lake. I love cathedrals and I especially love Gothic cathedrals, so Lausanne’s was the first thing to do when I arrived. I went there as a student and didn’t appreciate it. I thought the couple of photos I took then were a bit dark but it turns out Lausanne’s 13th century cathedral really is a bit dark. It’s very beautiful and has some amazing stained glass (including some hiding right up high in the crossing!) and my only complaint is that it’s far too hot. Cathedrals tend to be cool, cold places, especially when there's a snowstorm raging outside but this one has big heating vents keeping the place at approximately sauna temperature. It took a while to decide where in Switzerland I was going to go but it was really the Hotel Swiss Chocolate in Lausanne that swayed me to Lac Leman. 🍫 This was on the blog yesterday but it gets an Instagram post too - I went to a Swiss chocolate factory and did a chocolate workshop! The actual chocolate work was very easy but I really enjoyed the little lesson on tempering chocolate while our creations set enough to take them home. Back in the summer, I realised that I could be using my weekends for more adventures and I definitely squeezed every minute out of Friday to Sunday for a little trip to Switzerland (except Friday afternoon where I was too tired after a very early morning to do much more than lie on my bed and stretch a late lunch out to three hours).

About Julie

I’m a blogger, adventurer, lover of hot water, amateur paddler and polar bear who wilts in hot weather.

Time (by day, I’m a researcher) and funds keep me within Europe and I make regular trips up to the north, especially to Iceland. I like the occasional adventure across Europe by train and I’m starting to make use of my weekends for 48-hour adventures.

This isn’t my only creative outlet – I’ve written two travelogues with a third and fourth being (not to much) written simultaneously right now.

Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • I Am A Polar Bear
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • I Am A Polar Bear
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...