Eiríksstaðir living history museum
Dalir · Reconstructed longhouse
Walk from the visitor parking area to the protected ruins and reconstructed longhouse. Check museum opening times for the interpreted indoor visit.
- 1 hr visit
- 47 km from Hvammstangi as the crow flies
Before the voyages west
Eiríksstaðir connects a small Icelandic farm with the saga journeys of Eirík the Red and his family.
The sagas of Eirík the Red and the Greenlanders connect this corner of Dalir with journeys toward Greenland and North America. Before those voyages, their story has a domestic scale: a household, a farm and the work of living in Iceland.
At Eiríksstaðir, archaeology and storytelling sit alongside one another. The protected ruins are thought to be the farm of Eirík and Þjóðhildur; the longhouse visitors enter today is a reconstruction, informed by investigation of the old site. Its interpreters introduce tenth-century household life. The distinction matters: the building lets you imagine the saga world, while the remains provide evidence of the people who lived here, without proving every detail of the saga account.
Sources: eiriksstadir.is, west.is
