Game of Thrones at Þingvellir: The Golden Circle on Screen
Þingvellir played the Vale of Arryn in Game of Thrones Season 4. Which scenes were shot in the rift, what else made it on screen, and how to visit in a day.
By Björn Einarsson, Iceland Golden Circle tour guide and local specialist
There is a spot near the top of Almannagjá, a couple hundred meters down the boardwalk from the Hakið viewpoint, where someone in almost every group stops, holds up a phone with a screenshot on it, and asks the same question. Is this the Vale of Arryn? The wind is usually doing its best to steal the phone. The short answer is yes, more or less. The long answer is better than the screenshot, and it involves exactly one stop on this route, three famous places that are nowhere near it, and a rift valley that was staging power struggles eight centuries before anyone wrote about Westeros. I guide here, I walk that gorge most weeks, and this is the honest version.
Was Game of Thrones filmed at Þingvellir?
Yes. Þingvellir National Park stood in for the Vale of Arryn in Season 4 of Game of Thrones, including the approach to the Bloody Gate. It is the only confirmed filming location on the Golden Circle route itself, and every classic day trip from Reykjavík stops there.
The record on this one is clean. Þingvellir appears on every serious list of Iceland's Game of Thrones locations, cast in Season 4 as the Vale of Arryn, the mountain kingdom guarding the Bloody Gate. The running tallies kept by Icelandic travel editors, like the location guide at Guide to Iceland, count at least 16 confirmed filming sites across the country. Þingvellir is the one that happens to sit first on the loop, closest to the capital.
What the production borrowed is the same thing UNESCO recognized. This is a rift valley where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates pull away from each other, leaving sheer cliffs, deep fissures and a valley floor that keeps sinking. Icelanders founded their parliament here in 930, so the site was hosting real political drama long before the fictional kind arrived. The park's own pages at thingvellir.is lead with the geology and the history; the show is a footnote to them.
I hear the question in every season of the year, sometimes before the bus doors have fully opened. Nobody should feel silly asking it. A television series pointed an enormous audience at a real place, and the real place holds up.
Which scenes were shot in the rift?
Þingvellir's rift valley played the Vale of Arryn in Season 4, the stretch of the story where Arya and the Hound ride toward the Bloody Gate. The cliffs and canyon walls you walk beneath in Almannagjá are the same kind of terrain the crew put on screen.
Season 4 is the one to rewatch before you come. The Vale of Arryn material, Arya and the Hound crossing the high country toward the Bloody Gate, drew on exactly this terrain: dark basalt walls, a green valley floor, paths pinched between rock faces. Walk the boardwalk down through Almannagjá, the great fissure on the North American side of the rift, and the resemblance explains itself. The gorge narrows, the walls climb, and every fan in the group slows down at the same bend.
Two honest cautions from someone who watches people hunt for exact camera angles every week. First, film crews shoot from positions no visitor path reaches and frame tighter than your eyes do, so chasing a one-to-one match with a screenshot is a losing game. The terrain is the match, not any single boulder. Second, nothing physical remains. There is no gate, no set piece, and no sign about the show anywhere in the park. Þingvellir does not mark its screen credit, and I think that is the right call. You are standing in a crack between two continental plates that happens to have appeared on television, not the other way around.
If the ground itself hooks you harder than the story did, I wrote a separate piece about walking between two tectonic plates at Þingvellir. That walk is the best twenty minutes on the whole route whether or not you have watched a single episode.
What other stops on the route appeared on screen?
On the route itself, Þingvellir is the confirmed screen location. Gullfoss and Geysir do not appear on the confirmed lists. Iceland's other Game of Thrones sites, at least 16 confirmed across the country, sit outside the loop: Kirkjufell as Arrowhead Mountain, Reynisfjara as Eastwatch, Skógafoss behind the Season 8 dragon flight.
This is where I have to be straight with you, because plenty of posts fudge it for clicks. The confirmed location lists put exactly one Golden Circle stop on screen, and it is Þingvellir. Gullfoss is a 32 meter double cascade that looks like a matte painting, yet it has no confirmed screen credit. Neither does the Geysir field. The roughly 300 km loop is spectacular for its own reasons; the show only borrowed one corner of it.
The famous Icelandic locations fans know from the later seasons are real, they are just elsewhere in the country:
| Location | Stands in for | Season | On the Golden Circle? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Þingvellir National Park | The Vale of Arryn and the Bloody Gate | 4 | Yes, first stop on the loop |
| Kirkjufell | Arrowhead Mountain | 6 and 7 | No, Snæfellsnes peninsula |
| Reynisfjara beach | Eastwatch by the Sea | 7 | No, south coast |
| Skógafoss | Backdrop for the dragon flight | 8 | No, south coast |
Kirkjufell sits on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, northwest of the route. Skógafoss and Reynisfjara are south coast landmarks, a full day of driving in the opposite direction. Here is the whole picture on one map:
Can you visit the filming spots on a normal day tour?
Yes. Every day trip from Reykjavík stops at Þingvellir, so the one confirmed filming location on the loop is included by default. Stops run 30 to 45 minutes depending on the tour. The other Icelandic locations, Kirkjufell, Skógafoss and Reynisfjara, need a separate day.
There is no trick to this one. Þingvellir opens effectively every day trip out of Reykjavík, so booking any standard tour puts you at the filming location without asking for anything special. The real difference between tours is how long you get in the rift:
| Tour | Length | Time at Þingvellir | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic day trip (coach) | ~6.5 hours | 30 minutes | 4.5 across 5,543 reviews |
| Blue Lagoon combo (small group, max 19) | ~11 hours | 45 minutes | 4.9 across 6,241 reviews |
| Tomato farm and Kerið (small group) | 9 hours | 45 minutes, plus 15 at Öxarárfoss | 4.9 across 215 reviews |
For a fan who mainly wants the rift plus the classic trio of stops, the straightforward pick is the Classic day trip, a Gray Line coach running about six and a half hours with an app audio guide in ten languages; you can check live availability and prices on Viator, since the price only shows in the booking flow. Its 30 minutes at Þingvellir is the tightest of the three, so walk with purpose: viewpoint first, then straight down the gorge. The two small-group tours hold 45 minutes, and that quarter hour changes the feel of the stop. My rundown of every stop on the route covers what the rest of the day looks like.
Self-driving works too. Park entry is free, with a 1,000 ISK per car parking fee at the visitor areas, and you can hold the rift as long as you like. What you lose is the commentary, and on this particular topic the commentary is half the fun.
What did the show change for Iceland's tourism?
The show turned Icelandic landscape into a character, and travelers followed. With at least 16 confirmed filming locations across the country, location hunting became its own reason to visit. On the route I see it weekly: people arrive holding screenshots, matching cliff lines to scenes.
I started guiding in 2020 and settled onto this route in 2022, years after the final season aired, and the questions had not slowed down. They still have not. Most weeks somebody asks about the Vale of Arryn before we reach the first viewpoint, and I have watched travelers plan entire self-drive itineraries around those 16 pins, treating the country like a scavenger hunt board. Snæfellsnes for Kirkjufell, the south coast for Skógafoss and Reynisfjara, this route for Þingvellir.
What strikes me most is how well the park absorbed the attention. Þingvellir stayed what it was: a national park, a UNESCO site, the founding ground of a parliament in 930. The rangers manage paths and parking, the rift keeps widening a few millimeters a year, and the television credit sits quietly on top of all that. Newer productions pull the spotlight now, and the screenshot in the visitor's hand changes from year to year. The habit the show created, reading a landscape through scenes, seems permanent.
What do fans miss if they rush it?
Fans who sprint through Þingvellir miss the reason it was cast: the rift itself. A 30 minute stop covers the viewpoint and little else. The walk down Almannagjá, the plate boundary underfoot, the parliament site from 930, all of it needs closer to an hour.
The mistake plays out in front of me weekly. Someone jogs to the Hakið viewpoint, takes the photo that matches the screenshot, jogs back to the bus, and never actually enters the gorge. The viewpoint shows you the Vale. The walk puts you inside it. The gorge floor is where the walls rise over your head, where the light changes twice in ten minutes, and where the scale that made a location scout's career actually registers.
If you are building your own day instead of joining a tour, the raw numbers are friendly:
| Item | Figure | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Þingvellir entry | Free | Open national park |
| Parking at visitor areas | 1,000 ISK per car | Official park fee |
| Full loop distance | ~300 km | Reykjavík out and back |
| Nonstop driving time | 3.5 to 4 hours | Without a single stop |
| Typical day trip length | 6.5 to 11 hours | Depends on add-ons |
Give the park an hour if the schedule allows it. Walk the gorge top to bottom, detour to Öxarárfoss, stand on the valley floor and look back up at the walls. My breakdown of how long the route really takes shows where that hour comes from without wrecking the rest of the day. The show gave you a reason to come here. The rift gives you the reason to stay a little longer.
Three questions fans keep asking
Which season was filmed at Þingvellir?
Season 4. The park stood in for the Vale of Arryn, including the approach to the Bloody Gate, during Arya and the Hound's storyline. If you want the scenery fresh in mind, rewatch that season on the flight over.
Is anything from the shoot still there?
No. No sets, props, or signs remain, and the park does not mark the show at all. Þingvellir presents itself as a UNESCO World Heritage site and the founding place of Iceland's parliament in 930, with the screen credit left as an unspoken bonus.
Can I see Kirkjufell, Skógafoss or Reynisfjara on the same day?
Not realistically on a route day trip. Kirkjufell sits on the Snæfellsnes peninsula and the other two are on the south coast, each direction its own full day from Reykjavík. Fans chasing all of Iceland's locations usually give the project two to three extra days.