I recently received a Facebook reminder that it has been three years since our memorable trip to Iceland. Looking back over the past week, I’ve seen so many wonderful memories from our visit. We decided to go to Iceland because it was one of the few places that, at the time, allowed fully vaccinated travelers during the height of the pandemic. Although Iceland wasn’t originally on our list of must-see destinations, we ended up having an incredible time there, and now we’re making plans to go back and explore all the places we missed during our first visit.
While I’ve already written about many things we did during our trip, today I was reminded that there was one stop that I’ve neglected. I’m using the excuse that it’s because this was the absolute last stop for us in Iceland before heading to the airport for our flight home.
SAGA Museum
Grandagarður 2, 101 Reykjavík
We were mostly burnt out after our whirlwind trip along Iceland’s southern coast. We returned to our hotel in Reykjavik for the night before our flight back to New York. We had a few hours to kill, and we figured that we might as well kill it good. My wife Sharon and I are suckers for tacky touristy locations, and this looked like it would fit the bill.
When we arrived, the parking lot was empty, which caused us to second-guess our decision. But having already seen the other sites we were interested in in Reykjavik, we had nothing else to do. So we parked our rental car and went inside. Admission cost $25, which we thought was a bit steep for a “tourist” attraction for an hour of entertainment. But since we had time to kill, we paid the entrance fee. Little did we know what we had in store for us.
The SAGA Museum’s purpose is to show the history of Iceland with lifelike figures. When you enter the museum, it’s easy to dismiss this as a tourist trap. However, as you walk through the exhibits, it’s obvious that this was a labor of love for those involved with this project. These figures aren’t cheap wax statues but something more.
To recreate these historical moments in the most authentic way, life-like replicas of historical Icelandic figures have been created, based on descriptions found in the Viking sagas and chronicles.
Clothing, weapons and everyday objects were constructed using traditional methods passed down through the ages. The weapons were specially crafted and the wool and linen articles dyed by hand.
There’s a realism about the figures that’s impressive, while at the same time are a little creepy, too.
We took our time walking through the museum with our headsets, learning the significance of each scene to Iceland’s history.
(I left out the scene where Freydis Eiriksdottir, the sister of Leifur the Lucky, made a solitary stand against the natives after her companions had fled. Finding herself cornered beside the corpse of Porbrandur Snorrason, she took up his sword, opened her tunic and placed the blade against her naked breasts. This strange but bold gesture put the natives to flight.)
At the end of the museum, you can view a movie about the making of the figures in the exhibit. It turns out that the curator used native Icelanders to make the figures for the museum.
To cap off the juxtaposition of attention to detail and a creepy vibe, when you enter the theater showing the movie about the creation of the figures, there’s a lifelike figure of the museum’s creator sitting in the theater.
Final Thought
Was our visit to the SAGA Museum the highlight of our Iceland trip? Definitely not. (Note from Sharon: For me, this was) However, I’m glad we spent an hour and paid the $25 to see the museum. There’s a difference between seeing what’s obviously a tourist trap and feeling ripped off and seeing something that’s obviously someone’s labor of love. When you look closely, there’s a level of detail in the displays showing that the people who made this place wanted it to be the best version of itself that they could create with the available resources.
You have to respect when someone pours their life ambition into a project and gets other people to work with them, even if the end result isn’t perfect.
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