This summer York’s Jorvik Viking Centre goes 4D with an exploration of Norse music and storytelling, food and drink and a special Viking wildlife spotters’ guide.
Starting before visitors even enter the doors, displays will be on offer, with customers blindfolded and asked to identify various Viking-age products just by touching them, before being given a pair of binoculars and a spotters guide to discover some of the animals tha reside in this re-creation of a 1,000-year old-settlement.
The olfactory and gustatory senses come next, where people can sample Viking delicacies, including dried fish.
Fish played an important part in the diet of Vikings, and in a trading city like Jorvik, with its two rivers and links to the sea, it was never in short supply. Archaeological excavations at Fishergate (which in Old Norse translates as Fish Street) found evidence of a variety of fish bones, including carp, pike, salmon and eel as well as herring bones and oyster shells.
For the older visitor, mead, a fermented honey drink is also on offer. Mentioned in the vivid Viking sagas as the drink of poetry, in time for a re-telling of Viking sagas, accompanied by Norse musical instruments.
The attraction’s Sarah Maltby says: “We know visitors to the centre love interacting with our Viking hosts, asking them questions and posing for photos. They also appreciate our authentic Norse-era smells, (though may not always enjoy them) but we really wanted to bring the full Viking experience this summer, Hollywood has its big budget 3D blockbusters but as we already operate in three dimension we wanted to take it a step further and offer Vikings in 4D!”
Vikings 4D opens for a limited time from July 18 to Sunday September 6.
