The valley of Sudurland in southern Iceland is already in shadow when we reach the destination of our hike along the rocky river bank. After climbing over a hill, we see the shiny water mirror.
It's a surreal sight: Seljavallalaug, an outdoor pool from 1923, 25 meters long, ten meters wide. A pipe supplies the pool with hot water from underground.
Two Polish tourists are one step ahead of us, on their way down the bathing ladder.
- It's fantastic, says Bartek, visiting from Gdansk, in the warmth and stillness.
Meanwhile, in Vesturbæjarlaug in western Reykjavik, people crowd the pool. The facility is an obvious meeting place for everything from school classes to pensioners all year round.
- Many people don't come to swim, but to sit in the hot tubs and meet people, says Anna Kristin Sigurdardóttir, who is operations manager for the pool.
Vesturbæjarlaug is, just like Seljavallalaug, a thermal bath with warm water from underground. It does wonders for the body on a cool autumn day.
- We Icelanders all keep complaining about the cold and the long winters and that it's hard to live in Iceland. But when people move abroad, they long to go home to the pools. We are lucky to have all this geothermal water, says Anna Kristin Sigurdardóttir.
The old basin in the mountains and the great pool in western Reykjavik are both part of a culture that has come to define Iceland in modern times. The habit of bathing and socializing in warm outdoor pools has been included on the UN agency UNESCO's list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity since last December. This means that the Icelandic pool culture is part of the world heritage, just like the French baguette and the tradition of celebrating the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
Four out of five Icelanders - 79 percent of the adult population, according to a survey in the anthology "Sund" - consider themselves pool bathers. This means that visiting a swimming pool is more common than watching HBO or Netflix or drinking coffee or tea in Iceland.
- We start as pool visitors in our parents' arms, we go there with our school classes, we hang out there as teenagers with friends, we date there, and if we're lucky we can go there with our own children, and the very luckiest get to grow old in the pool, says sociologist Valdimar Hafstein, professor at the University of Iceland and one of the co-authors of the pool book "Sund".
He sees how pool culture combines the tradition of bathing in hot springs with modern political projects and public investment.
- You can say that the pools are the Nordic welfare state in liquid form, he says.
Even in the Middle Ages, Icelanders bathed in natural hot spring water heated by the interior of the earth. It was a way for a farmer to warm his stiff body and socialize with his neighbors.
But it was a freedom reform at the end of the 19th century that paved the way for the modern basins. Poor Icelanders, who had previously been housed on farms as servants, were allowed to move and support themselves freely. More and more people chose to go out to sea to catch fish. But they lacked the ability to get ashore if the boats capsized.
- There are endless stories, even in my own family, of how the family stood on the beach and watched as the father and perhaps the eldest son ended up in the water and drowned. If they had been able to swim, they would have managed to get ashore, says Valdimar Hafstein.
Iceland had to invest in swimming lessons to survive. The first pools were built where there was a flow from a hot spring, as in Seljavallalaug.
The changing rooms also became a place where people could take care of their hygiene.
To this day, pool goers are given strict instructions to wash without swimwear before entering the pool. Although now the message is mainly aimed at people passing through.
- When you look at sources from the beginning of the 20th century, you can see how foreign visitors were shocked by the dirt in Iceland. Now the roles are reversed: The tourists must learn to be clean, says Valdimar Hafstein.
On one of the benches by the Vesturbæjarlaug pool, Sonja Berglind Hauksdóttir closes her eyes. At times she visits the pool every day. Sometimes she stays for an hour, sometimes two or three.
- I am a spiritual person and water represents spirituality for me. It's like my soul is cleansed, I just love being in water, she says.
Sonja Berglind Hauksdóttir is a multitasker, who devotes herself to everything from meditation to working as a DJ. She has problems with body aches. Then the pool is a place where she can book a massage.
- It's cheap therapy, she says.
She has children and grandchildren in Sweden. When they come to visit, they go to the pool as soon as they can.
- The kids get to play and move around. The parents can enjoy the sauna, everyone has a good time and relaxes. We go home clean, eat a good dinner and go to bed, she says.
Vesturbæjarlaug was inaugurated in November 1961. The pool construction was ground-breaking, as the architect drew inspiration from the poet Snorri Sturluson's private swimming pool Snorralaug.
The modern exercise pool was supplemented with hot whirlpools. It was a success.
- In the past, the pools were built for swimming, training and bathing. But then the game takes over, says sociologist Valdimar Hafstein.
You can learn to swim and exercise at Vesturbæjarlaug. But the gathering point is a shallow circular pool, where visitors can stretch out in a pleasant temperature of 33-35 degrees. The smaller hot tubs are hotter, with temperatures of up to 42 degrees. An ice bath is close to freezing.
Operations manager Anna Kristin Sigurdardóttir says with some amusement that trends come and go.
- Infrared saunas are now the very latest. There was a time when we had tanning beds, but they are gone, she says.
She notes that the popular pools usually become an election issue in the local elections in Iceland.
- Politicians always make new promises. "We will have longer opening hours" and such. It's a bit frustrating for us who work here.
It is perhaps not so strange if those in power see the power of pool culture. "The third place" is a popular concept in sociology. So a social environment that is separate from the security of the private home and the demands of working life. It can be a cafe, a gym, a church, a book club – or a sauna and a swimming pool.
As the lines between work and leisure blur, such meeting places will grow in importance.
- We need places where strangers can meet, and where strange faces eventually become familiar, says Valdimar Hafstein.
He compares the bath to a library, where the books are exchanged for people.
- The pool is a place where you can meet your neighbors when they are most vulnerable, almost naked. You sit there surrounded by warm water, no one has their mobile phone with them. I think it's the only place in Iceland where you can enter into a conversation with strangers without having drunk alcohol, he says.
The only risk is that it will be too crowded in the pool.
One evening at the Blue Lagoon tourist attraction in the lava fields of southwest Iceland, the queue for the pool bar is long. A young guy's job is to collect the plastic glasses along the piers. At one of the piers, a couple from Seattle rests. They have visited amazing places in Iceland. The lagoon is a bit of a disappointment.
- A little too many tourists, say the two tourists.
Over the past 15 years, Iceland has grown strongly as a travel destination, from half a million to two million visitors per year. Geothermal baths attract many. New spa facilities are constantly being built. Destinations that you visit once or twice in your life.
Blue Lagoon temporarily closed after the volcanic eruption and earthquake on the Reykjanes Peninsula three years ago. Then the busloads of tourists went instead to some of the pools in Reykjavik.
- There was an influx of people asking for bathrobes and looking for the bar, and there was a big clash in the expectations of different visitors, says ethnographer Valdimar Hafstein.
It is no news that places and phenomena on UNESCO's World Heritage Lists can suffer from the attention. From the Taj Mahal in India to the Lake district in the UK, complaints come.
A visit to Vesturbæjarlaug costs the equivalent of SEK 120, a fraction of an entrance ticket to a tourist spa.
Valdimar Hafstein does not want to paint the devil on the tiled pool walls.
- We must embrace tourism. But a balance is needed to be able to welcome newcomers and temporary visitors. The pools need to remain a place where local people can live their lives.
The pool to the south, Seljavallalaug, ceased to serve as the region's official swimming pool in 1990, when residents were given a more accessible alternative. Since then, the pool has been cared for by volunteers. Getting there is a moderate trudge over stony fields and gravelly hills. The risk of over-tourism is limited.
The visitors from Gdansk, Bartek and Angelika, have read reviews online where visitors complain about worn changing rooms. They think it's bullshit.
- How could everything be in top condition? Only volunteers take care of the pool, says Bartek.
At Vesturbæjarlaug, Sonja Berglind Hauksdóttir takes a dip in one of the hot tubs.
She is proud of the Icelandic contribution to the UNESCO World Heritage List. As long as it doesn't become more expensive for the local population.
- It's okay as it is now, but I hope they don't raise the prices because more tourists will come. This is cheap fun, when the whole family wants to do something together.
