Filming locations in Wicklow

Just south of Dublin, County Wicklow is known as the Garden of Ireland, a county of dark loughs, glens and waterfalls, and one of its lakes became the beating heart of Vikings. Lough Tay, a peat-stained mountain lake with a pale crescent of sandy beach, is Kattegat, the Norse settlement the saga returns to again and again.

The catch worth knowing upfront is that the lake itself lies on private Guinness land, so this is a place you admire from above rather than walk down to. A famous viewpoint over the water sits on the road across the Sally Gap, and from there the tea-coloured lake and its sand beach lay out exactly as they do on screen, framed by bare mountainsides.

It is about an hour's drive into the mountains from Dublin, and the drive is half the pleasure. The Sally Gap road threads through wild, empty uplands, and the route makes it easy to chain Lough Tay with the county's other set pieces into one looping day rather than a single stop.

Carry on over the gap and you reach Glendalough, a hauntingly beautiful early-monastic site of round tower and ruined churches strung between two lakes, while Powerscourt Waterfall, Ireland's highest, makes a short and easy detour. Together they turn a Vikings pilgrimage into a proper tour of the Wicklow Mountains National Park.

Practically, this is a day trip rather than an overnight: rent a car or join a tour out of Dublin, set off in the morning, and let the lookout over Kattegat be the anchor with Glendalough and the waterfall filling out the loop. Wicklow's weather is changeable, so a clear-ish day pays off handsomely at the viewpoint.