Víkingaheimar

This year I began my travel in Iceland in a wonderful Viking ship museum, Víkingaheimar, also known as the Viking World Museum.

It is located in the town of Keflavík, at the seaside, not far from Iceland's international airport of the same name.

The museum's main exhibition piece is the 23 metre long reconstructed Viking ship named Íslendingur. The life-size replica of the famous Gokstad ship was built by Gunnar Marel Eggertsson, who sailed it from Iceland to New York in the year 2000.

1000 years earlier, the norseman Leif Erikson had sailed from Iceland to North America. (500 years before Christopher Columbus!) Archeological remains of the Viking's settlements were found in the excavation site L'Anse aux Meadows.

This is a model reconstruction of their settlement in the mouth of a river.

Here is the Íslendingur seen from behind. Note her elegant shape and her very shallow draft (Tiefgang) of only 1.7 metres. This made viking ships so agile and practical.

And here is how she looks on deck. The mast was made to be removable.

I would love to sail on such a ship one day!