Saga Museum — Attraction in Reykjavik

A good and quick history on the founding of Iceland and the interesting characters involved. The whole presentation is about 30 minutes, but I was only able to go through about 20 because I had my almost 2 year old with me. It is not little kid friendly unless you don't mind them seeing dramatic and gory wax figures. My daughter became afraid at the wax figures expressions, and then when the scenes became dramatic with depictions of people being hung, killed by sword, blood, horror, etc then I became uncomfortable with her seeing it. So, perhaps there should be a suggested age. Maybe over 8-10? I don't imagine any younger would be comfortable here.

I just walked through the gift shop with my girl instead while my husband finished the tour. There are many very cool historical items for purchase. There's also a photo opp at the end where you can dress up. I didn't partake of that, but it looked like a fun touch. I would definitely do this sans...

I wish I had gone to the Saga Museum at the start of my Iceland trip, as it would have set up a great foundation for the tours and other exhibitions we saw. In the span of 35-45 minutes, you walk through a "haunted-house-type" setup - the figures are superbly life-like and the placards provide historical information. The audioguide that is included as part of entrance fee plays automatically as you walk through (but slightly off-time at some points).

Positive: tons of history; there's a cool film about how the museum was created, and the best part of all was the dress up room with real/heavy weapons and clothing like chain mail

Negative: if you have already done many tours/museums in Iceland, the content will be old news here; there is no information/presentation on written/oral sagas here

Tips: there is a discount with a Reykjavik City Card and also discount for students; prepare to spend about...

We visited here on our first full day in Reykjavik. It was rainy and dark until about 11 a.m., so this was an obvious place to start learning about the history of Iceland. We paid 6000 ISK, about £34. This is slightly more than Jorvik in York, which is close to where we live. Jorvik has the cars to ride in through the exhibition and a superb archaeological section, so Jorvik is excellent value for money in comparison. However, Iceland is known to be very expensive, so we weren't surprised. The Saga Museum staff gave us each an audio guide, which was triggered and matched to the exhibits as we walked through. I thought the information given and the matching displays were excellent and gave us a clear understanding of Iceland's often violent history. We were there for about an hour. There was a gift shop but no cafe (though the staff recommended the nearby Brikk cafe...