Experience Birka Viking City & Museum - Boat Tour from Stockholm

An unmissable excursion for everyone interested in Viking Age funerary rituals. You will have the unique opportunity to walk over the burial mounds spreading across the island listening to a very knowledgeable local guide. You will have also the opportunity to see an historical reconstruction of a Viking village. Overall, an unforgettable experience.

The boat trip in both direction was beautiful (the weather allowed for sitting on the outside deck). The scenery was beautiful. Birka was very suggestive. The guide was an archaeologist and very informative. The reconstructions were very interesting.

Without Emma, our wonderful and vibrant narrator, the tour would not have been worth it. She made it possible for us to imagine a Viking colony where there were only mounds of graves and an open flat field. The four hour roundtrip to Birka was not worth the time and effort to simplify hike on an island with just simple replicas, live depictions of Viking life, and if course, a gift shop. As an archeological area, there was no evidence of even a dig or a working excavation site. The tour fell short of my expectations.

I would recommand this very peace full and value for money

Beautiful views on the boat ride. Well organized for such a large group of people. Having an archeologist as a guide on the island was really interesting and she was great!

Incredible experience period! Seeing such a unique place and the voyage to get there was half the fun! Highly recommend.

Interesting experience. Speakers on the boat did not work properly, and so we could not hear anything the guide was saying along the way.

If you’re expecting to see an intact Viking city, this is not possible because the buidkigs were largely wood and are long lost to time. Birka was one of the earliest Viking settlements and what you see on the tour are burial mounds of various types and ages and the city walls. There are also replica buildings and boats. What you do experience is a tour of Lake Mälaren for about two hours and a very interesting walking tour (some bits a bit steep) of the former city site on the island. There is a small museum and a decent cafe (we thought the food was quite good).

This was an extraordinary experience – the chance to visit one of the most important archaeological sites in Western Europe, and to see for ourselves the burial mounds, the landscape, and something of how the people of Birka lived. The two hour boat trip was well worth it in and of itself. The lake is quite beautiful, and the chance to see the glorious Islands with their woods and small houses was delightful. There was a chilly breeze, but the boat was comfortable both on the Sun deck and in the lounge with its big viewing windows. The accompanying commentary was also really welcome and delivered in perfect English. When we reached the island, we took the chance to examine the museum which reconstructed what we’ve learned about four of the people buried on the island. The recent discovery that a grave long believed to be of a man is actually the grave of a woman warrior was especially intriguing. Then we did the walking tour of the burial mounds with a well informed and very articulate archaeologist as our guide. It is a little rough underfoot, but well worth the effort. We found the village reconstruction fascinating as well, not only because of the comical goats, but also because one of the reenactors carefully explained to us how the huts were made and how they were repaired. I could have listened to him all day. We brought a picnic so I can’t comment on the restaurant. If you are interested in the Vikings, I can’t recommend this place enough. It’s magical.

He deserves the boat trip. A trip out of town to see nature and villages from the sea. On the island you always write about nature...beautiful. But nothing more. The museum is not a museum as it is normally understood. It's a nice outing.