Pollurinn Hot Pool

Several pools sit side by side on the hillside, each held at a slightly different temperature between 38 and 42 °C. A short path leads down to a cold-water tub for a plunge between soaks. The water is clean, without the green algae found in some free Icelandic pools. Changing rooms and two hot showers were rebuilt recently. The scale is the point. This is a handful of tubs with room for a few cars, not a spa complex, and the fjord is in front of you the whole time you are in the water.

• No toilets. There are changing rooms and two hot showers at the pools, but no lavatories.
• No lockers. The changing rooms have none, so take valuables with you or leave them in the car.
• Shower before getting in. Use the hot showers by the changing rooms first.
• The car park is tiny. More than three cars there usually means the pools are already crowded.
• Bad weather takes the point away. The draw is the view over the fjord, and in rain that is what you lose.

Most people drive. A short gravel road runs from Tálknafjörður to the pools, and the car park sits about 10 metres from the changing rooms. There is no walk to speak of, just a few steps across. A second car park lies roughly a kilometre away if the first one is full. The town campsite is not far off. Getting to the cold tub means a short walk down the path on the hill.

Better: early morning, and clear weather.

Avoid: rainy days, and any time the car park already holds more than three cars.

The pools face out over the fjord, and that view is the reason to stop. In poor weather there is little left but warm water. Arriving first thing in the morning is the surest way to have the tubs to yourself.