Saturday night Volendam had its sock hop. We danced to ‘50s and ‘60s music, so you can’t really blame me for humming that ridiculous old Bobby Darin tune all Sunday morning while visiting the Forest Lagoon, a geothermal mineral bath in Akureyri, Iceland. It was my Icelandic earworm.
(The song was written when DJ Murray Kauffman bet Darin he couldn’t write a song starting with “Splish Splash, I was taking a bath.” Darin won the bet, and the song became a hit. His estate probably got a penny in royalties from the HAL on Saturday.)
Forest Lagoon, just across the Fjord from Akureyri, is easy to find. There are trees, not so common a thing in Iceland and they aren’t so tall. (The joke is, how do you find your way home if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up.) The Lagoon is in the Vaðlaskógur Forest.
The lagoon was the result of a road construction problem. In 2012 the road authorities were tunneling through a mountain to create a highway for Akureyri that would not be subject to winter closures as it snaked over the mountain. They ran into a “river” of hot, geothermal water that flooded the tunnel. The tunnel was eventually completed, not on time and not on budget. In 2014 the water was diverted into a hot waterfall that emptied into the fjord.
Then someone got the idea to use the water for a spa and take advantage of the Vaðlaskógur forest by making it a forest spa. The Forest Lagoon opened in 2022.
Suzi, Pam, John and I grabbed a cab to the lagoon, less than 10 a minute drive from town. There is a 25% senior discount, but you have to ask for it and, as of now, you can’t get it if you buy tickets online. They’re working on that. They offer a free shuttle from the town center, starting about a kilometer from the cruise dock. We took the shuttle back. Along the way we looked at the stop lights, known as “The hearts of Akureyri.”
Our ship’s arrival caught them by surprise. They looked out the window (the lagoon has a great views across the fjord) and started making phone calls, they needed to staff up for a day that turned out to be busier than they had planned. They had not planned on needing the shuttle this day.
The spa has two hot pools and a cold one, a sauna, two swim up bars (only one was staffed) and a bistro. They have signboards that show plans for a hotel, resort and more pools. Right now, it has a capacity of 200 bathers so on busy days reservations are a good idea. Yesterday was not a problem. We relaxed at the spa for about three hours before taking the Lagoon’s shuttle back to the center of Akureyri.
It was a beautiful day, the temperature may have reached into the low 70s. A group of teenaged boys jumped into the fjord. The looks on their faces ranged from exultation to misery. We watched while having a coffee and pastry. I bought a book on the Sagas and we enjoyed walking the kilometer back to the ship along the waterfront. The whole path has interpretive signs. Some described a 1906 fire that took out many of the towns historic wooden buildings and prompted the town to go to concrete construction. Signs pointed out the early concrete buildings and the surviving wooden ones.
Akureyri sits at the end of Eyjafjörður, Iceland’s longest fjord and the sail out was beautiful.
Eyjafjörður, Iceland’s Longest Fjord.
We sat on our balcony in the sun until we got a call from the Captain on the PA system. “Pod of Humpback Whales 4 points off the starboard bow.” We are portsiders so we ran to the starboard to watch them lazily feed.
