Saga Museum

The Saga Museum sets seventeen scenes from Icelandic history and the sagas with life-size silicone figures - the settlement, the conversion to Christianity at the Althing, the burning of Njal, the execution of the last Catholic bishop, the plague, the Turkish Abduction. The figures were made by one artist over years, using local people as models, and the faces are the thing visitors remember, along with a willingness to show violence rather than tidy it away. An audio guide walks the scenes. There is a costume room at the end where visitors can dress in mail and wool, which is the part children come for.

What you actually see

• Seventeen staged scenes - settlement to the eighteenth century.
• Silicone figures modelled on locals - faces built from real people.
• Violence not sanitised - burnings, executions and the plague included.
• A costume room - mail and wool to try on.

When to go

Year round. An hour.

Honest expectations

Some scenes are genuinely gruesome and not suited to young children. It is one hour of content at a full museum price. The audio guide carries the history, so skipping it leaves you with waxworks. It gets crowded with tour groups midday.

Nearby

Whales of Iceland is next door; the old harbour and Grandi cafes are around it.