The French Museum

The museum occupies two buildings the French left in Fáskrúðsfjörður: the Doctor's House and the French Hospital. The subject is the fishermen themselves, many of them from Brittany, who worked the grounds off Iceland and used this fjord as their base. Wax figures and a recreated hospital scene carry much of the storytelling. The rest runs as photographs and video, with the narration playing from large tablets, and there is a lot of it. A tunnel under the street links the two halves, and a French schooner has been rebuilt inside it as those boats were, down to the saloon and the berths. The lower level is hands-on. One screen carries the names of the men lost at sea. If you have seen the Breton end of this story, in Paimpol or nearby, this is the other end of it.

• Admission — paid, and expensive for a museum of this size.
• Who it suits — the draw is the history. With no interest in the sea, France or Brittany, it will not hold you.
• With children — there is a bingo game to play through the exhibition, and the lower level is interactive.
• Facilities — there are toilets, and the tunnel out of the exhibition ends at the café and restaurant Labri.

Fáskrúðsfjörður is a village on the east coast, and the museum stands inside it rather than out of town. Access is by road, and there is parking at the museum, some of it wheelchair accessible. The last stretch of the visit is indoors: the two buildings are joined by a tunnel under the street, and it brings you out at the café and restaurant Labri.

Better: a day of rain or wind. The exhibition is entirely indoors.

Avoid: arriving just before closing.

Much of the story is told as voiceover on screens, and there is more of it than a quick pass allows. The tunnel and the rebuilt schooner come at the end, and that is the part worth having time for.