Where did you learn to swim?

Probably somewhere where there was chlorine, a diving board, a lot of people around, maybe

a snack bar.

But that's not how it was if you were growing up in Iceland a hundred years ago.

You might have learned to swim in this place, in the mountains, in a swimming pool that

nearly blends into the sky itself, surrounded by rolling green hills, with a little bit

of snow dusting them at the very top.

It's something out of a fairy tale, with steam rising and circling it like a halo, almost

too beautiful to be true.

I'm David Plott, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, we're going to the southern tip of Iceland, to the gorgeous Selya Viola, the most

beautiful swimming pool I've ever seen, after this.

It's hard to find the first time there's no, as in most places like this in Iceland, there's

no signs.

Road signs, in general, in Iceland, are very minimal, are being just some long 47 character

word in an arrow.

This is Steve Rogers, he's a photographer from Tennessee.

On his first trip to Iceland, he was lost in the southern part of the country, looking

for a famous thermal pool.

And so this one, I actually am missed the first time I went there, and I had to kind of,

you know, ask some locals, it's about a half, three quarter mile drive off the main

...