VIKING COUNTRY.
Day 131 – It continued raining all night and it was very windy. This morning when we got up the rain & wind had calmed down a bit. We decided to hope for the best and went for a drive to another northern point on the peninsula – L’Anse aux Meadows, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was here that Vikings, led by Leif Erickson, founded the first European settlement in North America a thousand years ago.
“L’Anse aux Meadows was a tiny fishing village in 1960, when explorer Helge Ingstad came looking for a place the Vikings called Vinland. Ingstad, his archaeologist wife Anne, and Parks Canada uncovered the remains of several Viking houses, a forge, and other buildings, proving the Vikings were here more than 500 years before any other Europeans arrived on this continent.” from the Newfoundland/Labrador Traveller’s Guide 2023
We drove from the campground southeast to where Route 437 meets Route 436, then we headed northeast. It was raining lightly on & off. In some cases, the fog and the mist just made the scenery look better. L’Anse aux Meadows is a busy tourist destination. There must be a fascination with Vikings because there is a Viking B&B, the Viking Motel, the Viking Gift Store with Viking trinkets, etc. Many of the exhibits and interpretive tours are geared towards tourists and they are outside. Since we walked through Norstead (and loved it) in 2019 and it was raining this morning, we skipped Norstead. The UNESCO Visitor’s Center exhibits are also outside. In 2019 and today, both, there were tour buses filling the parking lot. We took a couple of pictures but didn’t walk to the Center.
The villages of L’Anse aux Meadows, however, was not full of crowds. It was very nice – charming – we felt like we were at the top of the world, so far north. And the scenery, with the rocky islands and headlands, was gorgeous.
We stopped for lunch at ‘The Norseman at L’Anse aux Meadows’, a gourmet restaurant and local artist gallery. The food was excellent. We split a bowl of Seafood Chowder and the Fish Taco w/small salad (tortillas are made in-house daily). We each had the Chocolate Terrine with Partridgeberries (surprise, surprise) for dessert. The dessert was the best part! Some of the local art in the gallery was excellent. For example, there were small, intricate carvings made from moose antlers (they shed their antlers annually, no moose were harmed in this endeavor). Grin.
In addition we visited several wonderful, scenic villages along the northeastern coast between L’Anse aux Meadows and St. Carols. During the morning, we drove through and stopped at the villages of Griquet, St. Lunaire, Gunners Cove, Quirpon, and Straitsview. In the afternoon, we drove through and stopped at the villages of Great Brehat, St. Anthony Bight, and St. Carols – they were beautiful and bathed in sunlight. All the villages were on the North Atlantic. The many rocky headlands were misty from the waves breaking on the shore. There were a couple of trails that led to excellent viewpoints. A very old village cemetery, a fisherman drying his Codfish catch, flowers, rocks, islands, Ocean, old sheds filled with cut wood for the winter; it was all great, and we had a very nice day.
We drove back to the RV and had Salmon for dinner. The high today was 66 degrees, with a mixture of rain, wind, clouds, and sun. So far, the forecast for tomorrow is perfect for our Whale Watching trip out of St. Lunaire. Stay tuned.