From the misty waters of the Blue Lagoon visitors find relief, relaxation

GRINDAVIK, Iceland (AP) – Mounds of lava rocks line a narrow passageway, leading from the parking lot to the front door, beckoning me to the misty, soothing waters of the Blue Lagoon spa.

I’d last visited this geothermal oasis in 1998, and three years later, I barely recognized the place. After a $5 million renovation, it was cleaner, more modern and the entrance was open and spacious — less of a dank cavern and offering more of the feel of an embracing solarium.

The Blue Lagoon came to be in the mid1970s, when some communities on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula — in the southwestern part of the island — sought to harness heat generated by the geothermal area.

So as a power plant hums away in the distance, travelers flock to the lagoon for its relaxing — and some say, restorative — powers of the waters and silica mud that swirl in the middle of a lava field.

By the 1980s, the area was opened to the public, and soon its visitors, especially those with psoriasis, started to notice healing effects of the natural geothermal seawater.

The first bathing facilities for the public opened in 1987, and by the 1990s, the word had spread worldwide, attracting such star-studded visitors as Czech President Vaclav Havel, actor Kevin Costner, director Francis Ford Coppola and “Today” show host Matt Lauer, who made it one of the stops on his annual around-the-world segment.

These days, the clinic gets the seal of approval by Iceland’s Ministry of Health as an official outpatient clinic for the treatment of psoriasis, and the country’s Social Insurance reimburses treatment costs for Icelandic patients.

“What we especially liked about the whole thing was it had such a surreal quality to it,” said Dr. Gundula Thiel, 30, of Melrose, Scotland, who made a stop at the Blue Lagoon earlier this year after spending a week hiking in the country’s interior. “It’s freezing cold outside but you’re nice and toasty in the warm water. Also, it is very spacious but with all the steam, you can find a nice little private nook and barely see other people at all.

“When you do see them, it’s as if they are ghosts moving gently through the mist,” Thiel said. “And of course, the setting of it — right in the middle of the lava fields — it almost has an otherworldliness about it, like sitting in a soothing oasis on the Moon or Mars.”

On my first visit, the welcoming desk was in a tiny room with two dressing rooms off to each side. A nondescript gift shop was across the way. And the lagoon itself was a small wading area that fed into a larger basin featuring a few wooden platforms and varied depths — some areas fairly deep.

I am not a strong swimmer, and felt intimidated venturing off toward the deeper ends of the lagoon without tightly holding onto the rope that was strung along border.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the renovated spa, while about the same size at 53,820 square feet, was now no deeper than 4 feet in any one spot.

There are now a few wooden footbridges scattered about and a sauna is tucked away in the corner.

There’s a café at the complex that serve up tasty refreshments and fancy meals. And the expanded gift shopoffers an array of products, from bath salts and soaps, to silica mud and moisturizer. There is even a line of bathrobes, hats and towels.

There are banks of showers in the dressing rooms, which come in handy after spending the day in the lagoon waters, which tend to make the hair feel like thick, straw afterward.

The sulfur smell is jarring at first, but is quickly forgotten once you feel the tingling sensation of the silica mud. I have rosacea, a skin disease that sometimes prompts small, pimple-type spots to appear on my face, and found the silica mud made my skin feel smoother and softer.

“The silica mud did seem to have a pleasing exfoliating effect on the skin,” Thiel said. “I think we were used to the smell by the time we left there.”