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Wednesday, May 24, 2017

31 May 2017 - Iceland Day 6: Viking Cafe and Viking Village

When I was researching on interesting places around Höfn last night, I came to know about a Viking Cafe and Viking Village at Stokksnes.  This was not in my original itinerary but we decided to go and have a look. By driving down a small gravel road twisting away from the main route between Höfn and Djúpivogur, we arrived at Viking Cafe.
Outside the cafe stood two Viking Tiki and bones of some prehistoric animals.
The cafe offers a choice of delicious cakes, waffles and sandwiches but a bit pricey.  There were also some activities inside the cafe.
Viking Cafe is situated in a wild setting under moodily Gothic Vestrahorn mountain.
To visit the Viking Village, we need to take a short hike from the Cafe.  As the village was built on the land owned by the Cafe owner, we need to pay a small fee (ISK800) at the Cafe before we were allowed to walk up the trail.
Once we entered a small gate, we were presented with stunning landscape all around us.
This place is really like no others and walking here made us felt like we had travelled back in time by few thousand years.
We could see the Viking Village at a distance.
Javier was way behind us because we was busy looking around using a binoculars.
There were Icelandic horses, belonged to the land owner, grazing on the field outside the village.
As we entered the village, we had to pay attention on the ground as it's pretty muddy at some point.
This replica Viking village was created for a film that was never shot. The most striking feature of the village is the buildings, which ape the architecture of the period magnificently.
Once inside the village, we were permitted to roam around at will.  We can pry open the wooden doors and find themselves within a range of rooms that look almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
While wandering around the village, the herd of horses entered the village and we had a very close encounter with them.
This settlement also comes equipped with a dungeon located beneath an enormous artificial boulder.
The movie the village was created for was never actually filmed due to funding issues. However, I read that Universal had recently acquired the rights to produce Vikingr, a film by the Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur. This film is expected to start production next year, with some of the filming taking place at this settlement.
We spent about an hour roaming around this interesting Viking Village film set.
As we were leaving the village, one Icelandic horse decided to enter at the same time.  We stood on some wooden planks at the doorway to avoid the muddy ground.  When the horse approached the doorway, it suddenly stopped right in front of us.  Probably it also wanted to walk on the wooden plank to avoid the mud.  We decided to stand on our ground to see how the horse reacts.  Eventually it gave up and walked over the muddy ground.....haha......  The last part of the following video showed what i had just described.  :-)
This is not one of the those popular places where most Iceland travelers will visit but I highly recommend it, especially while it's still open to public.





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