The complete guide to Viking travel

These Scandinavian invaders conquered much of northern Europe, and sailed as far as Canada and Turkey. Their influence in Britain and Ireland is still visible today and re-enactment is all the rage, says Lucy Gillmore

SO WE'RE OFF TO RAPE AND PILLAGE?

Er no, a Viking wedding in York. The city's annual Viking Festival, when men in chain mail and helmets rampage (politely) along the city's streets, takes place each year in February. There are banquets and mock battles and longboat races on the river Ouse to celebrate York's Viking heritage. This year, as well as Viking-themed walks there will be a traditional Viking wedding on Saturday 15 February in Clifford's Tower (adults £2.60, children £1.60, family £5.80) and a Royal Wedding at 11am on Saturday 22 February at St Michael-le-Belfrey Church opposite York Minster (adults £1, children 50p). To heal the rift caused by the St Brice's Day Massacre (in 1002 the English King Aethelred ordered the slaying of all the Danes in England – an early anti-immigration policy), King Sven brought his daughter to England to marry Uhtred of Bamburgh. The recreation of the wedding will include parts of the mass sung in Latin. An Evening with the Vikings, meanwhile, (also on 15 February) looks at a traditional family celebration with Norse ballads, board games and trials of strength and agility, saga-telling and Viking food. For more information and ticket prices for individual events (many are free) contact the Festival Office, Jorvik, Coppergate, York (01904 643211, www.vikingjorvik.com).

WHAT WERE THE VIKINGS DOING IN YORK?

Ruling Scandinavian England – The Danelaw – which covered much of the north of England. York (Jorvik) was once the Vikings' English capital. The Norsemen were a Germanic people made up of Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Gauls who swept south conquering much of northern Europe around 800AD. The reason for their migration was overcrowding back home and a desire for pastures new.

The Viking era in England began with the violent sacking of the monastery of St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland in ad793, and ended at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Although book-ended by two such bloody events, much of the period in between was peaceful and more marked by social change than bloodshed. The year 1066 is more commonly remembered as the date of the Battle of Hastings, of course, which took place three weeks later. (Incidentally, William the Conqueror was descended from a Viking warrior named Rollo.) Stamford Bridge, however, was a decisive moment in English history; it was the last Viking battle and effectively ended the Viking period of English history.

TELL ME MORE

Viking raids started in the late 8th century when the pagan Norsemen from Denmark and Norway sailed across the North Sea in search of land to colonise and wealth to liberate (mainly from the church as that was where riches were to be found). England at that time was made up of several separate kingdoms and so was unable to repel the raiders. King Alfred of Wessex confronted the Viking army at Edington near Salisbury Plain in AD878. He stopped them in their tracks but had to concede the northern and eastern counties. As part of the resulting Treaty of Wedmore a boundary was drawn from the Mersey to London. South of the line, the country was English, under the control of the King of Wessex; north of the line was The Danelaw, under Viking control and subject to Scandinavian law and custom.

Viking armies settled here and started farming and trading. They took control of English villages, often renaming them, and also created new settlements. The effect can still be seen in place names today. Shipton became Skipton, and Cheswick in the Lake District became Keswick to make it easier for speakers of Old Norse to pronounce. Scandinavian endings are -by, -thorp, thorpe, -trop, -toft, -thwaite, -holm and -ness. Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Leicester became important Viking towns. The location of the capital, Jorvik (York), was important strategically for controlling routes north and south and for crossing the river Ouse.

The Jorvik Viking Centre, one of York's most popular tourist attractions, is a reconstruction of 10th-century Viking York. Time capsules take visitors back to ad975 to a Viking settlement; you fly over typical street scenes with all the sights, sounds and, unfortunately, smells, before emerging at the real-life archaeological excavations and museum. Jorvik (01904 643211, www.vikingjorvik.com) is open daily 10am-4.30pm. You can pre-book by calling the reservations number on 01904 543403; the price for adults is £6.95, children £5.10, family (two adults and two children) £21.95.

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO IN VIKING ENGLAND?

Cycle the Viking Coastal Trail, a 50km circuit in east Kent. The trail follows the Thanet coastline from Pegwell Bay in the south to Minnis Bay in the north before turning inland to follow the line of the former Wantsum Channel which once separated the Isle of Thanet from mainland Kent (www.vikingcoastaltrail.co.uk). One of the sights along the way is the Viking ship Hugin at Pegwell Bay in Ramsgate. It's a full-size replica of a ship which sailed from Denmark to Thanet in 1949 to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the invasion of Britain. For information contact the visitor centres at Margate (01843 230203), Broadstairs (01843 862242) or Ramsgate (01843 585809).

IT ALL SOUNDS A BIT TAME, I THOUGHT THE VIKINGS WERE RUTHLESS WARRIORS

The Vikings weren't saints by any stretch of the imagination, but they have had a bad press over the years, largely because until recently we've relied on historical accounts and chronicles from the times, written by the church – which have tended to be a little one-sided. After the savage attack on Lindisfarne monastery in ad793, an early outpost of Christianity, many dismissed the Vikings as barbarians. Today day-trippers to this bleak island making the three-mile journey across tidal flats can easily imagine fierce Viking hordes sweeping across the island. Lindisfarne Priory (01289 389200, www.lindisfarne.org.uk) is open daily Easter-Sept 10am-6pm, Oct 10am-5pm, Nov-Easter 10am-4pm, adults £3, children £1.50. The Lindisfarne Heritage Centre (01289 389004, www.lindisfarne-heritage-centre.org) in an old coaching inn is open daily from 10am-5.30pm.

However, there is more to the story than bloodthirsty raids. The Vikings absorbed the local people into the communities they set up. Now that we have more archaeological evidence we can see that the Vikings were also entrepreneurs and traders who spread ideas and crafts from Scandinavia and the countries they travelled through.

If you do want something a bit more exuberant, though, head up to Lerwick in the Shetlands for the Up Helly Aa Viking fire festival which takes place on the last Tuesday of every January and marks the end of the Yule season. Lerwick is the most northerly town in Britain and takes its name from the Norse Leir-vik which means muddy bay. Men wearing full Viking costume take the longboat that they have built down to the sea in a large procession. More than 800 flaming torches are thrown on to the ship, setting it ablaze. The festival continues with music, theatre and dance. For information call the tourist office (01595 693434, www.visitshetland.com) or check out www.up-helly-aa.org.uk

SO THE VIKINGS WERE GREAT TRAVELLERS?

Yes, and masters of the seas. The Vikings were intrepid explorers and skilled seamen, who, from the start of the 9th century until the end of the 11th, travelled extensively. Their vessels were longboats and knarrs. Longboats, used for raiding, were low in the water and about 30m long. They were incredibly fast and could sail up shallow rivers, adding the element of surprise to an attack. The Vikings even crept up the Seine to Paris and had to be persuaded to leave with sacks of silver. The knarrs were smaller, sturdy little cargo boats about 18m long. Travelling along the coast, the Vikings navigated by means of landmarks along the cliffs, such as burial markers; however, they were also the first Europeans to dare to lose sight of land. As well as the stars and sun, other more unusual navigational aids used were fleas, seabirds and seaweed. Fleas always hop due north so could help to plot a course, gannets fly far out to sea but always fly back towards land in the evening, while seaweed with a strong odour indicates that land is close.

WHERE DID THEIR JOURNEYS TAKE THEM?

The Swedes, by and large, headed east, the Norwegians west and the Danes south and south-west. The Norwegian Vikings hit the Hebrides, Shetland, Orkney, the Scottish mainland and the west of Ireland first. They also penetrated as far south as Moorish Spain, sacking Seville in 844, while the Danes colonised Normandy (named after the Northmen). The Norwegian and Danish Norsemen discovered and colonised the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland, and were the first Europeans to settle in North America; Leif Eriksson arrived in approximately ad1000, beating Columbus by nearly 500 years. The colony they established was called Vinland.

The Swedish Vikings, especially those from the country then called Gotland (an island 160km south-east of Stockholm in the Baltic Sea and now one of Sweden's most popular summer holiday destinations), went east, reaching the great cities of the Middle East such as Constantinople (now Istanbul) and Baghdad, often dragging their famous longboats overland when the rivers became too small and shallow. Arabian writings show them sailing down Russian rivers to the Black and Caspian Seas, trading and pillaging as they went. They reached as far east as the river Volga.

SO WHERE WAS VINLAND EXACTLY?

Good question. According to the Icelandic sagas, Vinland was a land of plenty where wild vines hung heavy with grapes, rivers were bursting with salmon, and thick forests provided timber in abundance. The sagas written in the 12th and 13th centuries handed down from oral traditions tell the story of Bjarni Herjolfsson, a Norse settler who was blown off course and spotted a continent west of Greenland around ad985. Around 15 years later, the explorer Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red, pitched up on the shore of North America. He explored three areas, which he called Helluland, Markland and Vinland. Helluland was described as rocky and barren and is now thought to be Baffin Island and northern Labrador. Markland was low coastland, forested and probably southern Labrador.

The location of Vinland is still a matter of conjecture. The sagas don't pinpoint its position. Because of the mention of grapes, historians believe that the Vikings travelled as far south as Cape Cod, and that Vinland itself was below the Gulf of St Lawrence. Erik wintered here, then returned to Greenland laden down with grapes and timber. It's thought that hostile Indians forced the Vikings to abandon Vinland after only a couple of years.

In 1960, after studying the Vinland sagas, Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine started to search along the Newfoundland coast and discovered some rectangular humps near to a peat bog at Epaves Bay. They started excavations and discovered a number of artefacts at L'Anse aux Meadows, at the end of the northern peninsula of Newfoundland in Canada. The dig also revealed the outline of eight sod-walled buildings, one thought to be a bathhouse. Other items found include iron nail fragments and a soapstone spindle whorl similar to ones found in Iceland and Greenland. They concluded that this was a temporary settlement for about a hundred sailors, carpenters and blacksmiths.

Today L'Anse aux Meadows is still the only place in North America where remains of a Viking settlement have been found, and is both a Canada National Historic Site and a Unesco World Heritage Site. It's a low-key windswept place and looks very much as it must have done a thousand years ago. There's a small museum on the site, and recreations of three low-slung Viking hump-backed sod houses near to the beach, surrounded by rough fencing. A longboat lies overturned on the sand. L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Park (001 709 623 2608) is 43km from the town of St Anthony and is open 9am-8pm daily mid-June to Labour Day, 9am-4.30pm daily mid-May to mid-June and Labour Day to October. It's closed October to mid-May. Admission: adults $5, children $3. Nearby is Viking Boat Tours (001 709 623 2100) which offers trips on a replica Viking ship.

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

The Vikings from Lake Malaren in Sweden were the ones who set sail for the Black and Caspian Seas and Byzantium, then called Constantinople after the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine. They moored in the Golden Horn and surveyed the thick city walls. The Vikings called the city Miklagard or Great City. Tempted by the vast wealth of the empire, they attacked Constantinople six times, plundering and setting fire to its houses and churches for the first time in ad860. The city never yielded but the emperor was forced to pay a tribute to the Vikings. Eventually the Vikings gave up, becoming mercenaries for the Holy Roman Emperor, who called his Viking guards Varangians. The Vikings, never ones to miss an opportunity, went on to develop trading links with the Byzantines.

In Istanbul, Viking graffiti – "Halvdan was here" etched in the rune, or Viking alphabet – can still be seen on columns in Haghia Sofia (00 90 212 522 1750, Tues-Sun 9.30am-4.30pm, £6), the cathedral completed by Emperor Justinian in ad537 and boasting the largest dome in Christendom until St Peter's was built in Rome more than a thousand years later. The magnificent pink building in the district of Sultanahmet, where most of the tourist sites are located, was originally a cathedral, then a mosque and is now deconsecrated and a museum.

TAKE ME TO THEIR HOMELANDS

The Norsemen came from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In Denmark the National Museum in Copenhagen (00 45 33 13 44 11, www.natmus.dk, open 10am-5pm Tues-Sun, admission 50kr/£4.50, free on Wednesdays) is a good a place to start. Here you can see helmets, axes, scissors and coins from England to the Middle East, in fact many of the places where the marauding Vikings journeyed. Continuing on the Viking trail, in Roskilde, just half an hour away from Copenhagen by train, a town founded by one Harold Bluetooth at the end of the 10th century, you can see the remains of five ships in the Viking Ship Museum (00 45 46 30 02 00, www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk, open May-Sept 9am-5pm daily, Oct-April 10am-4pm daily, admission 60kr/£5.30, Oct-Apr 45kr/£4). The ships are thought to have been sunk on purpose in the 11th century to block the Roskilde Fjord to protect the town from Norwegian Vikings. Discovered in 1957 and dredged up in 1962, the vessels were preserved almost intact by the surrounding mud. The five ships are now housed in a large concrete building with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water. Next door is the Viking Ship Museum Harbour and workshops with an information centre and boatyard where replica ships are built. In the summer you can sail in these vessels on the fjord.

In Norway there's also a Viking Ship museum (00 47 2243 8379, www.ukm.uio.no/vikingskipshuset) a short bus ride out of Oslo. It has some of the best-preserved longboats in the world, displayed in a sparse almost church-like building. The vessels were brought ashore and used as tombs for nobility who were buried with jewels, servants and furniture for their future life. The blue clay the ships were buried in preserved them. One ship, the Oseberg, is 22m long and decorated with dragon and serpent carvings. Many other Viking artefacts are also on display but its three beautifully carved ships are the main attraction. Entry costs 40kr (£3.50) for adults, half that for children.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE SWEDES?

Birka, a town 25km west of Stockholm on the island of Bjorko, founded around ad700, is perhaps the most famous archaeological site in the country. In its ruins were found Arabic coins and pearls from Eastern Europe. Its museum (00 46 8560 51445, www.raa.se/birka; open daily May-end Sept), which houses scale models of how the town used to look as well as finds from the excavations, stands at the centre of a large ruined Viking town. Outside, people in traditional Viking costumes practise the old crafts. A guided tour takes you to see the archaeologists at work. Around the site is the largest Viking cemetery in existence. More than 3,000 burial mounds have been found in the area. To get to Birka you take the steamboat from Stadshubron near Stadshuset with Stromma Kanalbolaget (00 46 8 5871 40 00, www.strommakanalbolaget.com). The price for the steamboat and Birka tour is 235kr (£16.75) for adults and 113kr (£8) for children.

Birka was abandoned around 960, and the power base shifted to nearby Sigtuna, which became an important trading port. Sigtuna Museum's exhibition, "Town of Kings, Home of Vikings", explains the town's development from ad980 as the Vikings increased their contact with the world. The relics on display come from as far afield as Russia and the Byzantine Empire. The museum (00 46 8 597 83870, www.sigtuna.se/museer/) is open from 12 until 4pm daily.

In Stockholm, the Historiska Museet (00 46 8 51 95 5600, www.historiska.se, open mid-May-mid-September 11am-5pm daily, mid-Sept-mid-May Tues, Wed, Fri-Sun, 11am-8pm Thurs, admission 60kr, 35kr children 13-16, under 13 free) is Sweden's largest archaeological museum and as well as artefacts from Viking times including rune stones, swords and skeletons has Viking writings and maps outling their travels.

The Vikings in Ireland: how the Norwegians founded Dublin

The first Vikings cruised along Ireland's coast at the end of the 8th century, stopping off for a spot of monastery-plundering on the way. A few years later, in ad837, they made a more concerted effort, 60 longboats sailing up the river Liffey where they founded Dublin, or Dubhlinn ("black pool"). The Vikings built a harbour (today the southside) and by the 10th century Dublin had become the centre of an important Viking kingdom.

The largest Viking burial site outside Scandinavia was unearthed at Islandbridge and Kilmainham. The decisive battle in Irish Viking history was the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, when Brian Boru, the Irish king (pictured left), finally defeated the Norsemen – although he was killed in the process.

Archaeological excavations in Dublin have revealed remains of the Viking settlement around Wood Quay (where Dublin's Civic Offices are found today) between the city quays and Christchurch cathedral.

For a serious view of the Vikings, head to the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology & History, Kildare St (00 353 1 677 7444, www.museum.ie, open Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm, admission free) which has displays on Ireland's Viking history. The Viking Splash Tour of Dublin in a Second World War amphibious vehicle with a Viking guide is fun for children (00 353 1 855 3000, www.vikingsplashtours.com; adults €13.50/£9, children €7.50/£5, family of two adults and up to three children €45/£29.50; tours from 13 Feb-30 Nov).