From Iceland to Greenland to Norway, get a taste of their epoch-making adventures
Ed Grenby - 2 March 2022
Y Norsemen saw them ou can’t visit Valhalla, sadly – that great hall of endless drinking and fighting is reserved for those who die in battle. (Or, judging by the sound of it, anyone who’s ever been on a stag weekend in Prague.) But if you’ve been inspired by the epic glaciers, edge-of-the-world fjords and sheer oceanbraving adventure of the Netflix drama Vikings, there are plenty of destinations where you can get a flavour of Norsemen’s lives. The new spin-off series, Vikings: Valhalla, centres on three real-life saga heroes: Leif Eriksson, Freydis Eiriksdottir and Harald Sigurdsson. Follow in their wake and you’ll see the full scope of Viking exploration…
LAND WITH LEIF IN NEWFOUNDLAND
What do you do to make a name for yourself when your dad discovered a whole new country? Discover a better one, of course. Leif ’s father, Erik the Red, set out from Iceland one day in AD 982 and found Greenland – but 20 years later, Leif sailed west and became the first European to set foot in the Americas.
Many historians believe he got as far as what is now Manhattan, but the best remaining traces of the Viking settlement of North America are at L’Anse aux Meadows, in Canada’s Newfoundland (pc.gc.ca/meadows). Here, visitors can explore reconstructed timber-and-sod longhouses and brave anaemic re-creations of Viking life (complete with cups of juice instead of booze: the Norse god Thor would turn in his ale-soaked grave).
But the really memorable thing about visiting the settlement – known to Vikings as Vinland – is simply wandering in this barren, ends-of-theEarth, Atlantic-side wilderness and marvelling at the strength of will Leif and his fellow settlers would have needed in order to tame it.
If you can’t face the ocean crossing, there’s always Reykjavik. Leif was born in Iceland, and still dominates its capital, thanks to the monumental statue of him gifted by the US in 1930 that sits atop Skolavorðuholt hill, at the head of the city. Get a bit of history at the National Museum of Iceland (thjodminjasafn.is) and Saga Museum (sagamuseum.is); then forget it all and have a bit of fun at Mink (mink. is), where you can dress up in imitation chain mail and faux fur, grab a replica sword from the rack, pull your fiercest face – and take home a souvenir “Viking Portrait”, shot by a photographer who worked on Game of Thrones when it was filmed in Iceland.
FOLLOW FREYDIS TO GREENLAND
Freydis was Leif ’s sister – and either an early feminist icon or cold-hearted murderer, depending on your point of view. Unwilling to stay home and accept a woman’s lot in Greenland, she followed Leif to America, and settled in Vinland. There, she promptly fell out with a couple of her co-colonists, accused them of assaulting her and arranged their murder. (The five women in their camp she polished off herself with an axe.)
So far, so brutal. But Freydis largely redeemed herself, in the saga-writers’ eyes, when the settlement was attacked by Native Americans: she tore off her top, beat a sword on her bare breast and charged the attackers, who then fled. She returned to Greenland after a year – and it’s in that vast wild land that visitors can experience some of the most evocative Viking moments. In the south, and especially around Qaqortoq, almost every farm and field and church stands on the site of a Norse one. In most places, there’s little left to see – a few broken rock walls, a reconstructed turf house, a runic inscription perhaps – but you’re looking out at a landscape utterly unchanged since Freydis and her pals were doing the gazing.
The same salt tang is on the wind, the same ominous creaking sound echoes off the glaciers, and – barely more populated today than it was in Viking times – you don’t need an expensive Netflix series to picture life here a millennium ago (visitgreenland.com/articles/experiencegreenland-like-vikings).
HOLIDAY LIKE HARALD, FROM ISTANBUL TO ENGLAND
Harald Sigurdsson was born in Norway and was King from 1045 to 1066, but he also spent much of his life in Kyiv and Constantinople, and travelled frequently enough to Denmark and England for him to claim both their thrones. Scholars believe he journeyed as far as Jerusalem and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard – so if you want to trace his footsteps, you’ ve got plenty to choose from.
Certainly, Norway’s fjords are wonderful for a Viking pilgrimage (visitnorway.com/ fjord-norway). They’re best seen by boat, just as the Norsemen navigated them, though the average modern cruise ship has a few more comforts. Closer to home, there’s Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, where Harald’s invasion of northern England was defeated by King Harold in 1066 – just days before the Normans arrived on the south coast.
Despite fighting in a “Berserker” trance (the frenzied, shield-biting, unarmoured battle fury that seems to have given some Viking warriors superhuman strength), Harald was slain. You can learn more at York’s Jorvik Viking Centre (jorvikvikingcentre. co.uk), or simply stand on the bridge at Stamford – where Harald’s death marked the end of the Viking era. ED GRENBY
Vikings: Valhalla Available on Netflix from 25 February 2022
Y Norsemen saw them ou can’t visit Valhalla, sadly – that great hall of endless drinking and fighting is reserved for those who die in battle. (Or, judging by the sound of it, anyone who’s ever been on a stag weekend in Prague.) But if you’ve been inspired by the epic glaciers, edge-of-the-world fjords and sheer oceanbraving adventure of the Netflix drama Vikings, there are plenty of destinations where you can get a flavour of Norsemen’s lives. The new spin-off series, Vikings: Valhalla, centres on three real-life saga heroes: Leif Eriksson, Freydis Eiriksdottir and Harald Sigurdsson. Follow in their wake and you’ll see the full scope of Viking exploration…
LAND WITH LEIF IN NEWFOUNDLAND
What do you do to make a name for yourself when your dad discovered a whole new country? Discover a better one, of course. Leif ’s father, Erik the Red, set out from Iceland one day in AD 982 and found Greenland – but 20 years later, Leif sailed west and became the first European to set foot in the Americas.
Many historians believe he got as far as what is now Manhattan, but the best remaining traces of the Viking settlement of North America are at L’Anse aux Meadows, in Canada’s Newfoundland (pc.gc.ca/meadows). Here, visitors can explore reconstructed timber-and-sod longhouses and brave anaemic re-creations of Viking life (complete with cups of juice instead of booze: the Norse god Thor would turn in his ale-soaked grave).
But the really memorable thing about visiting the settlement – known to Vikings as Vinland – is simply wandering in this barren, ends-of-theEarth, Atlantic-side wilderness and marvelling at the strength of will Leif and his fellow settlers would have needed in order to tame it.
If you can’t face the ocean crossing, there’s always Reykjavik. Leif was born in Iceland, and still dominates its capital, thanks to the monumental statue of him gifted by the US in 1930 that sits atop Skolavorðuholt hill, at the head of the city. Get a bit of history at the National Museum of Iceland (thjodminjasafn.is) and Saga Museum (sagamuseum.is); then forget it all and have a bit of fun at Mink (mink. is), where you can dress up in imitation chain mail and faux fur, grab a replica sword from the rack, pull your fiercest face – and take home a souvenir “Viking Portrait”, shot by a photographer who worked on Game of Thrones when it was filmed in Iceland.
FOLLOW FREYDIS TO GREENLAND
Freydis was Leif ’s sister – and either an early feminist icon or cold-hearted murderer, depending on your point of view. Unwilling to stay home and accept a woman’s lot in Greenland, she followed Leif to America, and settled in Vinland. There, she promptly fell out with a couple of her co-colonists, accused them of assaulting her and arranged their murder. (The five women in their camp she polished off herself with an axe.)
So far, so brutal. But Freydis largely redeemed herself, in the saga-writers’ eyes, when the settlement was attacked by Native Americans: she tore off her top, beat a sword on her bare breast and charged the attackers, who then fled. She returned to Greenland after a year – and it’s in that vast wild land that visitors can experience some of the most evocative Viking moments. In the south, and especially around Qaqortoq, almost every farm and field and church stands on the site of a Norse one. In most places, there’s little left to see – a few broken rock walls, a reconstructed turf house, a runic inscription perhaps – but you’re looking out at a landscape utterly unchanged since Freydis and her pals were doing the gazing.
The same salt tang is on the wind, the same ominous creaking sound echoes off the glaciers, and – barely more populated today than it was in Viking times – you don’t need an expensive Netflix series to picture life here a millennium ago (visitgreenland.com/articles/experiencegreenland-like-vikings).
HOLIDAY LIKE HARALD, FROM ISTANBUL TO ENGLAND
Harald Sigurdsson was born in Norway and was King from 1045 to 1066, but he also spent much of his life in Kyiv and Constantinople, and travelled frequently enough to Denmark and England for him to claim both their thrones. Scholars believe he journeyed as far as Jerusalem and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard – so if you want to trace his footsteps, you’ ve got plenty to choose from.
Certainly, Norway’s fjords are wonderful for a Viking pilgrimage (visitnorway.com/ fjord-norway). They’re best seen by boat, just as the Norsemen navigated them, though the average modern cruise ship has a few more comforts. Closer to home, there’s Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, where Harald’s invasion of northern England was defeated by King Harold in 1066 – just days before the Normans arrived on the south coast.
Despite fighting in a “Berserker” trance (the frenzied, shield-biting, unarmoured battle fury that seems to have given some Viking warriors superhuman strength), Harald was slain. You can learn more at York’s Jorvik Viking Centre (jorvikvikingcentre. co.uk), or simply stand on the bridge at Stamford – where Harald’s death marked the end of the Viking era. ED GRENBY
Vikings: Valhalla Available on Netflix from 25 February 2022