This guide is part of our complete guide to historical sites in Scandinavia.
Iceland’s headline historical site is also one of the easiest to reach on Earth. It is a standard stop on the Golden Circle, about 40 minutes from Reykjavík. Most people photograph the rift and get back on the bus without registering that they are standing in the birthplace of parliamentary government. Here is what is actually there.
Þingvellir: A Parliament in a Rift
- The Alþingi was founded here around 930 AD and met annually at this spot for centuries, generally described as the oldest existing parliament in the world (though it was suspended for a period in the 19th century).
- Around 1000 AD, Iceland’s conversion to Christianity was decided here; by negotiated arbitration rather than war, which is remarkable in itself.
- The Lögberg (Law Rock) is where the law-speaker recited the law from memory, one third of it each year, before writing arrived.
- Iceland declared independence here in 1944.
- It is simultaneously a geological site: you walk through Almannagjá, the rift where the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling apart. The Silfra fissure here is a world-famous dive site.
- UNESCO-listed for its cultural significance.
Practical: free to enter; you pay only for parking. It is the first stop on nearly every Golden Circle tour. Give it more than the 30 minutes a bus tour allows if you can. walk the full rift path.
The Settlement Exhibition, Reykjavík
Under a building in central Reykjavík sits the excavated wall of a longhouse dated to around 930 AD, preserved in situ where it was found, with a tephra layer from a volcanic eruption of about 871 providing the dating. It is small, it takes 45 minutes, and it is the most direct contact you will have with the actual settlement period.
Reykholt: Where Norse Mythology Was Written Down
Almost everything popularly known about Norse mythology traces back to Snorri Sturluson, chieftain, historian, poet and political operator, who wrote the Prose Edda and Heimskringla, and was murdered in his own cellar at Reykholt in 1241. His geothermal bathing pool, Snorralaug, is still there and is one of Iceland’s oldest surviving structures. The Snorrastofa centre sits alongside.
Skálholt: 700 Years as Iceland’s Capital
- The first Icelandic bishopric, established when Ísleifur Gissurarson was ordained bishop in 1056, and effectively Iceland’s centre of learning and power for roughly 700 years.
- Excavations in 1954–58, directed by Kristján Eldjárn (later President of Iceland), uncovered the carved stone sarcophagus of Bishop Páll Jónsson (d. 1211) on 21 August 1954. It is displayed in the crypt today, along with a medieval underground passage.
- The 1784 earthquake levelled every building at the bishop’s residence except the church; the school moved toward Reykjavík from 1785, and the see was merged into a single Reykjavík bishopric in 1801.
- The present cathedral, the tenth on the site, was built 1956–63 and consecrated on 21 July 1963.
- It sits directly on the Golden Circle route, a couple of minutes off Route 35. Source: Skálholt.
More on Iceland’s Early History
We have written separately on two questions worth your time: whether Irish monks reached Iceland before the Norse, and Iceland’s Viking battlefields and museums.
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Where to Stay in Iceland
Reykjavík works for Þingvellir, Reykholt and Skálholt as day trips.
