Church walls
Standing, roofless.
jtstewart — CC BY-SA 2.0 · jtstewart — CC BY-SA 2.0 · jtstewart — CC BY-SA 2.0
The Hvalsey Church ruins are the remains of a Norse stone church in southern Greenland, about 18 km in a straight line north-east of the town of Qaqortoq. They are the best-preserved Norse ruins in Greenland and part of Kujataa, added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2017. The church is thought to have been built in the early 14th century on a large Norse farm in the «Eastern Settlement», founded by settlers from Iceland around three centuries earlier. A wedding held here in September 1408 is the last written record of the Norse in Greenland, after which they fade from history. The stone walls still stand with their windows and doorways but no roof, on a green, grassy slope above the fjord, surrounded by the remains of the farm's houses and barns. Visitors usually arrive by boat from Qaqortoq on a trip between the fjord's mountains, sometimes passing drifting ice on the way. The ruins are free, while boat trips are paid. June to September is the best time to visit, when the fjord is open and the grass is green.
Standing, roofless.
A green slope above it.
From Qaqortoq.
Qaqortukulooq, Qaqortoq, Greenland
By boat from Qaqortoq, usually on an organised trip.
Yes, it is an open site.