The annual Viking festival in Hafnafjordur kicks off today with the opening of the Viking craft market at 5pm.
The festival has been held since 1995 and is the oldest, largest and most important event of its kind in Iceland. Activities include battle demonstrations, storytelling, wrestling, archery, music, dancing and plenty of eating and drinking.
The organisers behind the event, the Viking restaurant and hotel Fjorukrain, have arranged for almost two hundred Vikings to attend, both foreign and domestic, often arriving by boat with an exotic cargo of goods to sell. There are also troops of jesters and dancing girls, filling the centre of this normally quiet coastal town with music and merriment.
The event is not all peaceful, however, as the organisers promise a good Viking battle with mock deaths, just as visitors least expect it.
The Viking festival is held from 12th to 18th of June in Hafnafjordur, a town just outside Reykjavik.
For more information visit the Fjorukrain Viking restaurant and hotel website.
Want to come in 2010, can you put me on any emailing list you might have for more info? Thanks!!!