flyctory.com

Saga Museum Reykjavik

Florian Buechting Museums & Exhibitions No Comments

Saga Museum Reykjavik

2500 ISK
Saga Museum Reykjavik
3.2

Rating

 3.2/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Nice concept: Wax museum about Icelandic sagas
  • Nicely done wax figures

Flyctory.com Cons

  • (To me) too much information on the audio guide only
  • Rather narrow place
  • Quite high price

When I visited the harbor-area attractions in Reykjavik, I felt it is a good opportunity to share as many of the places around there with you as possible. Thus, I decided to also step into the Saga Museum Reykjavik, which is next to Aurora Reykjavik or the Maritime Museum.

 

Saga Museum Reykjavik – Location & Admission

The museum is located in the central harbor area, right inside the Matur og Drykkur (“Meals and Drinks”) pub. There are numerous other touristic attractions around, like the Maritime Museum, Aurora Reykjavik, Whales of Iceland and others. You can easily reach the area by public transport, but there is also a free gravel parking lot behind the Maritime Museum.

The museum is opening daily from 10:00 to 17:00 hrs. Admission is 2500 ISK, roughly 17 Euro.

 

Saga Museum Reykjavik – The Visit

The museum is in fact a wax museum, which is telling you the sagas, the myths and stories of Iceland. You walk along different dioramas, which are documented by signs in Icelandic and English. If you just read the signs, you will have a rather quick – and boring – visit. The free audio guide is giving you much more information – and also a wider range of languages like German, French, Spanish or Russian. There are some 18 stages, each audio guide section is between 1:00 and 1:30 minutes, so that your total stay is about half an hour.

The audio guide itself is nicely done and gives some good insights. However, I am not an audio guide person at all – and commentary over one minute to one wax figure diorama only is simply too long to me. It also does not give me the possibility to dive deeper into a story (or: listen to the whole story) at one place, when I just want to have a brief sum-up at another. As the stories have a different duration and the space of Saga Museum is not too large, you also tend to get rather close to other visitors.

 

Saga Museum Reykjavik – Services

Obviously, the pub gives you a nice opportunity to refresh before or after your visit of the Saga Museum. There is also a quite large souvenir store in one corner of the restaurant.

 

Saga Museum Reykjavik – My View

I have mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, I love wax museums and I like the idea of the Saga Museum. The figures are nicely done and give a good overview of the story. The audio guides are just too wordy in my point of view – and that’s the weak spot about the concept: I am sure that other visitors would even like to hear more than what is provided. The whole information is on audio (the signs are giving too limited information). This leads to a very rigid structure of your visit. I could imagine that more interactive technologies would help – but then, the narrow place might become a bit of chaotic.

 

(Greater) Reykjavik

Here are all my postings related to (Greater) Reykjavik:

 

Wax Museums

Here are all other postings about wax museums:

, , ,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *