Varðskipið Óðinn er hluti af Sjóminjasafninu og um leið ein helsta sýning safnsins. Skipið kom til safnsins árið 2008 og er varðveitt í því ástandi sem það kom. Boðið er upp á leiðsagnir á hverjum degi fyrir utan köldustu vetrarmánuðina auk þess sem skipið er opið gestum á hátíðisdögum sem er þá sérstaklega auglýst. 

Í leiðsögn er gengið um skipið, sagt frá sögu þess, lífinu um borð og því hlutverki sem að það gegndi hjá Landhelgisgæslu Íslands. Hver leiðsögn tekur tæplega klukkustund.

Til þess að tryggja öryggi um borð skal hafa í huga:

Lágt getur verið til lofts og hvassar brúnir og horn sem hægt er að reka sig í. Stigar eru brattir. Skipið hentar ekki fólki sem fær innilokunarkennd eða hefur skerta hreyfigetu. Börn yngri en 12 ára skulu ætíð vera í fylgd með fullorðnum.

Börn eru á ábyrgð forráðamanna.

The Coast Guard Vessel Óðinn is a part of the Reykjavík Maritime Museum. It is, as such, one of the Maritime Museum's primary exhibitions. It is preserved in the condition in which it arrived at the museum in 2008.

We offer daily guided tours on board the vessel except during the coldest winter months. It is also open to the public on national holidays, which we announce especially.

A guided tour includes walking around the vessel and hearing about the history on board and its role under the Icelandic Coast Guard. Each guided tour takes a little less than an hour.

To ensure safety on board, you should keep the following in mind:

The ceiling can be low, and please beware of sharp edges. The stairs are steep. The ship is not suited for people with claustrophobia or with reduced mobility.

Welcome aboard the historic Coast Guard Vessel Óðinn for a guided tour. The tours happen daily at 13:00, 14:00, and 15:00 from 1 March to 31 October, focusing on the Cod Wars and the vessel's rescue history.

Coast Guard Vessel Óðinn - Guided Tour on Board

Verið velkomin í leiðsögn um borð í hinu sögufræga Varðskipi Óðni. Leiðsagnirnar fara fram á hverjum degi kl. 13, 14 og 15 frá 1. mars til 31. október. Í leiðsögninni eru þorskastríðin og björgunarsaga skipsins eru í brennidepli.

Varðskipið Óðinn - Leiðsögn um borð

Fræðsla

Leiðsögn

Sýning

Árbæjarsafn er útisafn sem var stofnað árið 1957 en auk Árbæjar eru þar yfir tuttugu hús, sem mynda torg, þorp og sveit. Í Árbæjarsafni er leitast við að gefa hugmynd um byggingalist og lifnaðarhætti í Reykjavík á 19. og 20. öld. Hvert og eitt hús geymir annaðhvort sjálfstæða sögusýningu eða þá að þar er sýnt dæmigert heimili frá ákveðnu tímabili. Á safninu má einnig sjá gamaldags verkstæði ýmiskonar þar sem sjá má dæmigerða aðstöðu, tækni og tól.

Árbær was an established farm well into the 20th century, and the museum opened there in 1957. Árbær is now an open-air museum with more than 20 buildings which form a town square, a village and a farm. Most of the buildings have been relocated from central Reykjavik. The Museum seeks to give an idea of Reykjavik's architecture and way of life in the 19th and 20th centuries. Each house contains an independent historical exhibition or a typical home from a specific period. The museum also houses old-fashioned workshops on typical facilities, technology, and tools.

The guide takes guests to all the main houses of the museum and tells their stories. The guided tour is in English and takes just over an hour.

Guided tour at Árbær Open Air Museum

Leiðsögumaður fer með gesti í öll helstu hús Árbæjarsafns og segir frá sögu þeirra. Leiðsögnin fer að mestu fram á ensku og tekur rúma klukkastund.

Leiðsögn á Árbæjarsafni

Aðgengi: Safnið er á tveimur hæðum og aðgengi er gott, sérstaklega við inngang Grandagarðsmegin. Lyfta er á milli hæða. Hjálparhundar eru velkomnir.

Dostępność: Muzeum zajmuje dwa piętra, a jego dostępność jest dobra, zwłaszcza przy wejściu od strony Grandagarð. Między piętrami znajduje się winda. Psy przewodniki są mile widziane.

Muzeum miejskie zaprasza na rodzinne oprowadzanie w niedzielę 22 marca w godzinach  14:00-15:00 w Muzeum Morskim (Sjóminjasafn) w Reykjaviku. Przewodnikiem będzie Marta Wieczorek, wicedyrektor Szkoły Polskiej w Reykjaviku im. J. Korczaka i Reykjaviczanka roku 2024.

Zwiedzanie koncentruje się na wystawie „Ryby i ludzie – 150 lat rybołówstwa” i ma charakter zarówno edukacyjny, jak i rozrywkowy i jest skierowane do wszystkich grup wiekowych. 
Oprowadzanie jest bezpłatne, zapraszamy serdecznie wszystkie osoby polskojęzyczne.

Oprowadzanie po polsku

Borgarsögusafn býður upp á leiðsögn á pólsku sunnudaginn 22. mars, kl. 14:00-15:00 í Sjóminjasafninu í Reykjavík. Marta Wieczorek, Reykvíkingur ársins og aðstoðarskólastjóri Pólska skólans í Reykjavík, sér um leiðsögnina.

Leiðsögnin fjallar um sýningu safnsins Fiskur & fólk - sjósókn í 150 ár og er bæði fræðandi og skemmtileg fyrir alla aldurshópa. 
Leiðsögnin er ókeypis og öll þau sem tala pólsku eru boðin hjartanlega velkomin.

Leiðsögn á pólsku

Fjölmenning

Undanfarna mánuði hafa íbúar Reykjavíkur saumað búta eftir eigin hönnun á vinnustofum í bókasöfnum víðsvegar um borgina úr endurnýttum rúmteppum. Á meðan við saumum saman búta af efni, spinnum við einnig samtöl og sögur um nærliggjandi hverfi okkar. Hvernig líður okkur? Hvaða breytingar viljum við sjá í umhverfi okkar?

Þessi þriggja daga viðburður er hannaður í anda hefðbundinna „quilting bee“ samkoma, þar sem margir koma saman til að vinna að handverksverkefni hratt í félagslegu umhverfi. Þann 10.-12. apríl verða bútarnir saumaðir saman í stórt teppi sem verður sýnt á Sumardeginum fyrsta, 23. apríl, á Árbæjarsafni. Almenningur er velkominn að koma og fræðast um bútasaumsaðferðina og hitta fólk sem hefur lagt sitt af mörkum — einn saum í einu. Boðið verður upp á kaffi, te og kökur.

Verkefnið er styrkt af Þróunarsjóði innflytjendamála.

Over the past few months, Reykjavik residents have been sewing quilt blocks of their own design at local library workshops across the city. They were made with recycled bed covers. As we stitch pieces of cloth, we also piece together conversations and stories about our own neighborhoods. How do we feel? What would we like to see change around us?

This 3-day event is designed in the style of a traditional quilting bee, where many people come together to complete craft work quickly in a social manner. Here, the blocks will be sewn together to create a large quilt-top to be exhibited at the Árbær Open Air Museum First Day of Summer celebration on April 23. The public is invited to come learn about the quilt-making process and meet the people that have contributed, one stitched connection at a time. Coffee, tea and cake will be served. 

The project received a grant from the Development Fund for Immigrant Affairs.

We invite you to join local artist Christalena Hughmanick and Íslenska Bútasaumsfélagið (The Icelandic Quilting Society) at the Reykjavík Maritime Museum as they publicly construct a collective community quilt on 10-12 April at 10:00-17:00.

Let's sew Iceland together

Verið velkomin á Sjóminjasafnið í Reykjavík dagana 10.-12. apríl kl. 10-17. Þar býðst að taka þátt í að sauma saman samfélagslegt bútasaumsteppi með listakonunni Christalena Hughmanick og Íslenska bútasaumsfélaginu.

Saumum saman Ísland

Smiðja

Horse and a Mountain. Photo: Þorkell Sigvaldason

Reykjavík Museum of Photography

Landscape I Skotið in Fókus 2026

Kristján Maack│Sleeping Giants 

Reykjavík Maritime Museum

A View of the North

Árbær Open Air Museum

Growing Pains

Ancient Roots of Árbær in the museum building Landakot/ÍR House

Ancient Roots of Árbær

Fish & folk – 150 years of fisheries

Viðey Island

Milestones│Richard Serra

The Imagine Peace Tower

Suðurgata 7 │A Reykjavík home around 1925

Inside the exhibition "Hábær House 1950"

Hábær House 1950

Aðalstræti

Dillon's House at Árbær Open Air Museum

The house was built in 1835 on the corner of [Túngata and Suðurgata](https://borgarvefsja.reykjavik.is/borgarvefsja/?x=356770.72745794593&y=408275.4496130758&z=6&gId=1620829386406). 
Arthur E. D. Dillon, a.k.a Lord Dillon, was a young, English-Irish man of noble descent, the younger son of Viscount Dillon.  
He came to Iceland in 1834 to explore the country and its people and write a travel book.  Here, he met and fell in love with an Icelandic woman named Sire Ottesen. Unable to marry, Dillon left the country in 1835 but gifted the house to Sire and their daughter. Sire went on to run a restaurant there, hosting dances and renting out rooms. Dillon's House was moved to the Árbær Open Air Museum in 1961, where it now houses the museum coffee shop.

Looking Down Túngata Around 1850 – Painting by Jón Helgason. The painting depicts the corner of Túngata and Suðurgata as it appeared in the mid‑19th century, with Dillonshús in its original location at Suðurgata 2, on the right side of the image. 

Arthur E. D. Dillon rented a room from a storekeeper in town. He ate at The Club, a restaurant and meeting place in south Aðalstræti, where the Salvation Army later built a large house. Sigríður Ottesen, or Sire like she liked to be called, ran The Club. Sire was a divorced mother of two. She was quite a bit older than Dillon,12 years older than the 22-year-old English-Irish man. Earlier in the winter of 1834, she and the Prince Royal of Denmark, Frederick, had a brief relationship when he had been shipped to Iceland after it was known he had been in a relationship with a ballet dancer in Copenhagen. Frederick took the same ship back as had brought Lord Dillon to the country. Sire and Dillon quickly became romantically involved, and he moved to The Club. Shortly after that, Sire became pregnant.



Arthur E. D. Dillon and Sire Ottesen were forbidden to be together, and Dillon left the country in 1835 leaving the house to Sire and their daughter.

Sire had a baby girl in June, who was named Henrietta after Dillon's mother. Later that year, they moved to a brand-new house on the corner of Suðurgata and Túngata. There they lived together for a while. Dillon wanted to marry Sire but had to apply for a marriage licence from the Danish chancellery because he was Catholic. It is believed that due to the influence of the Dillon family, the application was denied. In the fall of 1835, Dillon went back home. The people of Reykjavík supposedly gossiped ruthlessly about the couple. 

When he was home, he began writing his travel story, and it was published in 1840. Sire and his daughter weren't mentioned at all in the book. Sire provided for her and her daughter by keeping a restaurant and meeting place in Dillon's House, as it was known by then. She held popular balls and rented rooms. Among these renters was the national poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, who lived there during 1841-42. Dillon kept in touch with his daughter, and they corresponded for many years. It is believed she visited her father in England in 1875, and her son, Pétur Arthur, went to an Officer School in England with the help of Dillon. Lord Dillon left Sire and his daughter a considerable amount of money in his will. 

Sire died in Reykjavík in 1878 and her daughter seven years later. Lord Dillon died in 1892.

Drawing of the poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, preserved in the National Museum of Iceland. Photographer: Jürgen Brand. From Sarpur.

On the upper floor of the house is the room where the poet and natural scientist Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807–1845) lived during the winter of 1841–1842 — most likely from early December until the end of June. He was also the first tenant and boarder of Siri Ottesen.

During this winter, Jónas completed his translation of G. F. Ursin’s Astronomy. The work drew attention, as it introduced for the first time many of Jónas’s well known Icelandic neologisms, such as aðdráttarafl (attraction/gravity), hitabelti (tropics), ljósvaki (ether) and sjónauki (telescope).

Jónas was born at Hraun in Öxnadalur but grew up at Steinstaðir in the same district. He graduated from the Bessastaðir School in 1829 with excellent marks, receiving the highest grade in mathematics. For the next three years, Jónas worked as secretary to Ulstrup, the town and district magistrate.

Jónas began his studies at the University of Copenhagen in 1832, first reading law and later natural science, although he did not complete a degree. He was, however, wholly serious about the natural sciences and acquired extensive knowledge in zoology, archaeology and geology. As Professor Sigurður Steinþórsson has put it:
“…if Jónas was ahead of his time as a poet, then he was a generation — or generations — ahead of his compatriots as a scientist.”


On the upper floor of the house is the room where the poet and natural scientist Jónas Hallgrímsson (1807–1845) lived during the winter of 1841–1842 — most likely from early December until the end of June.

It may be said that Jónas was resident in Denmark from 1832 until his death. He nevertheless travelled around Iceland in the summer of 1837, returned again two years later, and stayed continuously until the beginning of winter 1842. During this period he conducted natural history research and travelled widely across the country: “I have … seen all the land, except perhaps a little of the Langanes coast,” he wrote in a letter to Páll Melsteð. Jónas used the summers for research expeditions, gathering an enormous amount of material, which he then worked through during the winters. He also established the beginnings of a natural history collection and contributed to the practice of keeping weather journals, considered the start of systematic meteorological observations in Iceland.

Life in Reykjavík, however, rather bored Jónas. He found the town dull and had few close friends or kindred spirits. His health was not always good; for instance, he was bedridden for much of his first winter, and he drank somewhat — perhaps more than was wise. As the poet and statesman Hannes Hafstein wrote in the preface to the 1883 edition of Jónas’s poems: “The townspeople of Reykjavík did not hold Jónas in high esteem at this time, and it was even considered ‘unrefined’ to associate with him.” Yet few would have disputed that Jónas was a great poet.

Still, these “Iceland years” can hardly have been nothing but hardship; many letters from this period carry a light and lively tone. His work inspired him, and he took great pleasure in travelling around the country: the scientist analysed the rocks he encountered, and the poet transformed them into verse.


“The star of love / above Hraundrangi / veiled by the night’s clouds.”
Thus begins Ferðalok (Journey’s End) by Jónas Hallgrímsson, one of the most beautiful love poems in the Icelandic language. It has been convincingly argued that the woman behind the poem was Þóra Guðmundsdóttir (1812–1882). Jónas met her in the summer of 1828, but he composed Ferðalok much later — perhaps not until the final year of his life.

During his Reykjavík years from 1839 to 1842, another Þóra entered the poet’s life: Þóra Torfadóttir (1795–1857). She became intensely fond of Jónas; followed him about, lingered outside his window, and behaved so insistently that the poet wrote to the town magistrate Stefán Gunnlaugsson, demanding that the authorities protect him from her “unceasing harassment.” The letter to the magistrate was dated 19 April, and the response was swift: that same day the magistrate issued a formal written admonition, stating among other things that “she (Þóra) shall henceforth neither stand by his window nor follow after him in the streets or elsewhere; indeed she shall not even look at him, nor in the direction where he may be…”

On 27 October, Jónas sailed from Eskifjörður bound for Copenhagen — a voyage from which he would not return to Iceland. Jónas Hallgrímsson died in Copenhagen on 26 May 1845, only 37 years old. He was buried in Assistens Cemetery. The weather was fair and sunny, wrote Konráð Gíslason, adding: “What he leaves behind will long uphold his name in Iceland.”



*Drawing of the poet Jónas Hallgrímsson, preserved in the National Museum of Iceland. Photographer: Jürgen Brand. From Sarpur.


Around 1850, Sire cut down the restaurant business and rented out more rooms of the house instead. Among the renters were the sisters Ágústa and Þóra Grímsdóttir, who opened the first girl's college in Iceland in 1851-53. The school didn't succeed financially and was closed down. Þóra later married Páll Melsteð, and together they opened the current girl's college (Kvennaskólinn í Reykjavík) in 1874.


A great tragedy occurred in Dillon‘s House on 26 February 1953, at its original location on Suðurgata 2 in Reykjavík. The father of the household, Sigurjón Magnússon, a pharmacist, gave his wife and their three young children poison and then took his own life.
In 2023, the book “[The Murders in Dillon House: The Fateful Story of Sigríður Ögmundsdóttir and Hulda Karen Larsen](https://borgarbokasafn.is/ting/object/alma9916378698806893?language=en)” was published. In the book, Sigríður Dúa Goldsworthy, the niece of Hulda Karen, tells the family’s story in order to honour their memory.
 


Dillon House near the bottom centre of the picture, where it stands at Suðurgata 2, around 1928. Photo: Magnús Ólafsson.

Dillon's House at Árbær Open Air Museum in winter

June 17th on Túngata in Reykjavík. On the left is Dillon House at Suðurgata 2, 1955–1960. Photo: Magnús Daníelsson

Dillon's House at Árbær Open Air Museum in summer

Dillon's House at Árbær Open Air Museum - upper floor

29. Dillon's House

About the house

Lord Dillon and Siri Ottesen

Jónas Hallgrímsson

The first Girl's College

The Tragedy in the house

Dillonshús Café