Akranes Folk Museum

The museum is two things on one site. The main building holds everyday objects from the Akranes district: household goods, tools used by craftsmen, farmers and fishermen, medical equipment, costumes and part of a turf house. Several displays are set up as workshops for sewing, blacksmithing and woodworking.

Outside is the open-air museum, made up of houses brought here from around the town. Garðar, built in 1876 as a parsonage, is the oldest concrete house in Iceland, and is furnished as an upper-class home of the late 19th and early 20th century. Sandar-Vestri, from 1901, was a working-class family home. Neðri-Sýrupartur, from 1875, is the oldest preserved timber house in Akranes. Fróðá, from 1938, was a net and sail workshop.

• Mostly outdoors: the house collection and the boats stand on open ground around the main building. Bring a jacket.
• Sigurfari is off limits: the hull is unsafe and awaits restoration, so the ketch is viewed from the ground, not boarded.
• Audio guide: the visit is self-guided, with an audio device that carries English commentary.
• How long: half an hour covers the main building. With the houses and the workshops the visit runs to a few hours.

Garðar lies on the edge of Akranes, beside the town cemetery, and the museum has its own car park. The entrance to the main building is level and wheelchair accessible. From there the visit continues on foot: the old houses and the boats stand outside, spread across open ground around the building.

Better: a weekday, timed for the guided tour at 14:00. It runs all year, in the winter season as well as in summer.

Avoid: arriving shortly before closing. The house collection sits outside the main building and needs a second walk round.

The open-air half of the museum is the part the weather decides. The exhibition hall works in any conditions.