Viking Heritage
Longships, burial mounds and Norse sagas.
Follow the Viking trail through the places the Norse actually lived, sailed and raided. This guide to Viking heritage sites covers longship museums, trading towns, burial mounds and the monastery that marks the start of the Viking Age. Each Viking site is mapped, rated for mystery and paired with visitor information: museum opening hours, ticket booking, how the sites link into a single Nordic itinerary, and the best season to travel. Essential planning for a Viking history tour of Scandinavia and the British Isles.
3 destinations
Viking Heritage destinations
Holy Island, United Kingdom
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, lies off the coast of Northumberland in England. A road across the sand connects it to the mainland, but the sea covers that road twice a day. In 793 AD Viking raiders attacked the monastery here, an event that shocked Christian Europe and is often used to mark the start of the Viking Age.
Björkö, Sweden
Birka
Birka sits on the island of Björkö in Lake Mälaren, west of Stockholm. Over a thousand years ago it was one of the biggest trading towns in the Viking world. Today it is grass, low mounds and a museum, with more than 3,000 graves under your feet. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Oslo, Norway
Norwegian Maritime Museum
The Norwegian Maritime Museum sits on the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo, surrounded by other polar and ship museums. It tells the story of a country shaped entirely by the sea: fishing, shipwrecks, polar voyages and the boats that made them possible.