After a sleep and a plan of attack for the day we got into it with a drive into the centre of town from our accommodation, including an inaugural reverse park into small space on the RHS of road from LHS of car. Weird.

First stop was the Phallological Society of Iceland; a visit to the world's only penis museum. Despite the obvious humour and silly giggling from many of the other tourists in attendance, it was quite an interesting place. They had exhibits from mammals exclusively but had separated them out into groupings. Eg, ungulates, whales, rodents etc. The exhibits themselves obviously spoke about typical things of interest to the insecure human males about length, diameter, growth during copulation, length of copulation, volume of ejaculate etc, but for me the interesting part was about the "oddities". Mating features like those that "rut", the range of penis bone shapes, the range of sexual behaviours such as homosexuality, sex as dominance, sneaker males and the like. The section with plaster casts of Iceland males and also of famous people was interesting and reminded us of the female equivalent at MONA in Hobart.

Next up was a walk up towards the famous Reyjavik cathedral with its iconic appearance via a lovely rainbow painted street and a few tourist shops along the way. The viking presence is quite apparent here as it is undiluted in the way that Scandinavia was. I'm happily resisting any real urge to look to souvenir purchase here, struggling to see the value in it. The cathedral was great and we popped in, just in time to hear an organist practicing for a concert later in the week. Only slight detraction in my video was the loud drill being used for maintenance outside. Oh well.

In our planning last night, we were keen to take in one of the "lagoons" of thermal baths that Reykjavik is known for. Rumours say Blue Lagoon is closed and the Sky lagoon is very expensive and only really offers the one, seven part "experience" that is just not quite what we're after. So, we researched and decided on an alternative at Hvammsvik, about a 45 minute drive from the city to the north. So, off we went.

We had a great time. The place is tucked down behind a hill amongst some incredibly scenic mountains, and indeed the drive there was breathtakingly beautiful. It changes so quickly. The baths themselves were a series of 8 different pools, varying in size from the smallest fitting maybe 6-8 people, to the larger ones that would fit a lot more. There was a steam room and also, the proximity of the water offered a plunge into the 4C Atlantic waters...recommended by the Icelanders for vitality.

So, we showered, nude as required before entering the baths, put on swimmers and walked outside to the baths. They were lovely! We made our way into and out of each of them a few times, and had our swim up bar complimentary drink too. I ventured fully into the Atlantic waters twice. It was proper cold. The usual distraction of not really wanting to go deeper than thigh deep was actually not there. A purposeful stride into the waters but still by the time I got to that depth, my feet were hurting a lot, so to make sure I managed the full immersion I just had to get on with it. As I walked out, the sensation I can describe was part elation, part pain, part pins and needles. This was replaced by quite sharp pins and needles as I got back into one of the warm baths. Then, a lovely spreading feeling of "nice" came over me as I came back up to normal temp. I think I get the appeal and I was drawn to do it again after a later trip to the steam room. The steam room was great too. Under a grass roof, it was at 48C and 100% humidity. A nice pine smell inside with spray jets onto the floor under the wood seats as opposed to traditional sauna hot rocks. The garmin allowed me to check how long was a good idea to stay in there. First trip, heart rate got to 140bpm within about 3-5 minutes, so out I got. Second trip later on and it took about 6-7 minutes to get to 135bpm. Third and last trip, took about 8-9 minutes to get to 129bpm, but I was feeling a bit off by that length of time. Adaptation (or approaching death possibly?) is interesting. It was a bit addictive and I can see why they do it.

A lovely scenic but drowsy drive back to Reykjavik and a night in before we head over to Selfoss via Thingvellar NP tomorrow with our highly anticipated snorkel at the Silfra fissure in glacial water melt. Should be fun we think (or crazy).