When you think of the Vikings, you probably think of hell-raising warriors leaving Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark to pillage neighbouring nations like England, Scotland and France. You probably don't imagine them riding camels to Baghdad, wearing silk clothes in Istanbul or setting up camp in Canada. But believe it or not, they did – along with a few more surprise stops along the way. We take a look at the unexpected places the Vikings reached, and what remnants of their visits you can still see today.

We know that in AD 844, the Vikings attacked Portuguese capital Lisbon when it was part of al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia), and many also believe they made it to the Azores, a remote archipelago in the mid-Atlantic. A revolutionary paper has suggested that the Vikings reached the Azores some 700 years before 15th-century Portuguese explorers landed on the seemingly uninhabited islands, leaving a genetic mark in the form of mice, who may have hitched a ride aboard the Vikings' legendary longboats...

Scientists found surprising genetic similarities between Azorean and northern European mice, describing them as "living artefacts" of a Viking presence. Mice remains found in Madeira (Portugal’s southernmost Atlantic island, pictured) were also far more similar to mice in Scandinavia than in Portugal. Another study dated animal remains left in sedimentary layers across the Azores to AD 700-850. Historical records tell us the Vikings travelled around the Iberian peninsula around AD 789, with prevailing winds pushing towards the Atlantic, so it's highly plausible the Vikings could have been blown to these islands while attempting to reach the Mediterranean.

The region we call France today was repeatedly raided by the Vikings. While their first raid took place in AD 820, the worst – and most infamous – was the Siege of Paris in AD 845. Ragnar Lothbrok’s fleet of 120 ships (which carried some 6,000 men) sailed up the River Seine and besieged Paris, before the King of West Francia, Charles the Bald, paid them 7,000 livres to spare the city.

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However, by AD 900, some Vikings had essentially become French-speaking Christians through intermarriage, religious conversion and assimilation with the local Franks. Normandy eventually ceased being a Viking colony and became part of France, but the region continued to exhibit the Vikings' ruthless traits, as the Normans would regularly attack and capture foreign lands. Pictured here is Rouen, a beautiful Norman city.

While the Vikings never fully conquered Italy, according to the History of the Kings of Norway by Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson, they did plunder the town of Luni (pictured), having mistaken it for Rome. In AD 860, Bjorn Ironside and another chief, Hastein, sailed their fleet to northern Italy and tricked Luni's citizens into thinking the group wished to bury their Christian-converted chieftain (Hastein playing dead) within the city's consecrated walls. As soon as the Vikings were inside the city the killing and plundering began, but they quickly realised they weren’t in Rome after all and departed.

Afterwards, Ironside's band of Vikings allegedly headed north of Florence to Fiesole (pictured) and also sacked Pisa, but you won’t find any Viking remnants in northern Italy today. However, the Vikings' later successors, the Normans, established the Kingdom of Sicily in AD 1130 (comprising parts of southern Italy and the island of Sicily). Head to places like Palermo to check out the impressive Norman architecture.

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The capital of the mighty Byzantine Empire, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) served as a major trading crossroads between Europe and Asia. Naturally, the Vikings wanted a piece of the action and attacked the metropolis first in AD 860 and then in AD 941, but they never managed to get past the city’s heavily fortified walls. However, their behaviour made an impression on the Byzantines, and in AD 987 some 6,000 Vikings were recruited and called Varangians (possibly named after the Old Norse meaning ‘vow of fidelity’) to defend Constantinople for Basil II, as a replacement for his untrustworthy Greek bodyguards.

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The Varangian Guard protected the city and served as personal bodyguards to successive emperors. They fought in every major Byzantine campaign until western Crusaders sacked the city in AD 1204, while some sources say that a select few still identified as Varangians right up until the empire finally fell in 1453. You can still see two runic inscriptions (pictured) carved into the marble parapet of the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul's most glorious monument. Many believe these were etched by members of the elite Varangian Guard.

In the early 11th century the Normans (descendants of the Vikings) began conquering and settling in Sicily. In 2018, five male skeletons some 800 years old were unearthed in a Sicilian graveyard. Their bones and build were distinctly larger than ‘normal’ Sicilians and it’s thought they could be descendants of Roger de Hautville, a Norman nobleman who recaptured Sicily from Arab forces. You can see Sicily’s Norman influences at the Palatine Chapel (pictured), the Zisa palace and Cefalu Cathedral.

We don’t know for definite whether the Vikings themselves ever reached Sicily, but a mix of historical accounts and archaeological evidence points us in the right direction. There was a legendary Viking raid in the Mediterranean in AD 859 where they may have briefly visited Sicily, and it's believed that the Varangian Guard participated in battles there as early as AD 936 (although this would have been to defend the Byzantine Empire's territory rather than expand Viking rule).

After ransacking their way through the Mediterranean, the Vikings apparently reached North Africa. Led again by Bjorn Ironside and Hastein, in AD 859 a fleet anchored off Mauretania’s (modern-day Morocco) coast in the northern Rif region. Over the course of eight days they sacked Nekor, the culture-rich capital of the Kingdom of Nekor, and captured a number of North Africans, whom it seems they took to Ireland as slaves.

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While you won’t see any Viking remains in Morocco, a number of graves found in England could shine a light on what might have happened to the captives they took. Skeletal remains of a sub-Saharan African female discovered in Gloucestershire in 2013 were carbon dated to AD 896-1025, while another person of African origin was buried in Norfolk in AD 1000 – the peak of the Viking age in Britain. It’s impossible to know how they ended up there, but some historians have suggested their presence was the result of a Viking-run slave trade from North Africa.

In the 9th century AD Viking explorer Hrafna-Floki spent a winter in this icy new land, and gave the country the name we know as Iceland today. The first permanent Viking settlement came in AD 874, headed by Ingolfur Arnarson. Male settlers mostly came from Norway but many of the female settlers originated from the British Isles – many of them likely kidnapped and brought to this strange, new land.

Modern-day Icelanders draw about 70% of their genes from Norse ancestry, and there are plenty of places in Iceland with ties to Viking history. In Reykjavik, a statue of Erik the Red (more on him later) stands outside the Hallgrimskirkja church (pictured), while the nearby Settlement Exhibition is built around the ruins of a Viking longhouse, one of the oldest man-made structures in the country. There’s plenty more Viking activities to explore, from an annual Viking village festival held near Keflavik Airport to replica turf houses in Dalabyggð.

Exiled in disgrace from Iceland for murder, Erik the Red arrived in nearby Greenland in AD 985 with 14 longships. Viking settlers here built manor houses, maintained farms, imported stained glass and traded well into the 1400s. They established two outposts – one along the southwest coast and another around 240 miles north – and while there are Viking ruins you can still see today, we know little about the resident Vikings themselves. Nor do we know how much contact they had with the Inuit, who migrated to northwest Greenland from the Canadian Arctic in around AD 1200.

Some historians suggest that the Vikings travelled to Greenland for valuable walrus tusk ivory and were avid marine hunters. We’re still unsure exactly why they ‘vanished’, but a trio of problems (new trade routes, a cooling climate, the Black Death in Europe) may have caused them to pack up and leave, or they might have been devastated by deadly storms. You can still see the sparse remains of Viking-built Garðar Cathedral in Igaliku, the well-preserved Hvalsey Church in Qaqortoq (pictured) and Brattahlíð, the farm of Erik the Red himself, in Qassiarsuk.

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The Vikings never conquered North America, but an 11th-century outpost in Newfoundland was confirmed as the first European presence there. The Viking expeditions to North America are recounted in the Vinland Sagas, which detail the voyages of Leif Erikson and others in search of new territories to raid and seize. Vinland was the name Norse Vikings gave North America due to the discovery of native grapes – Vinland means ‘wine land’.

The site, now known as L’Anse aux Meadows, was first excavated in 1960. It features Norse building remnants and artefacts similar in design to those found in Greenland and Iceland, which were occupied by Vikings for centuries. Situated on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, the buildings at L'Anse aux Meadows had appeared to be constructed for long-term use, but archaeological evidence suggests they left sooner than anticipated, perhaps due to scarce resources or pressure from Indigenous peoples. Today, L’Anse aux Meadows is a UNESCO National Historic Site.

The Vikings first raided Spain in AD 844, penetrating northern Spain's Galicia region until they were stopped by King Ramiro I of Asturias. Later that year, they headed south and ransacked Seville, which was then under the control of the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate. However, things didn't always go swimmingly: when they tried to attack the Andalucian city of Cordoba, defending Umayyad soldiers managed to destroy 30 Viking longboats and kill up to a thousand warriors. Some Viking lives were spared after they converted to Islam.

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Galicia suffered more Viking attacks during the 960s and 970s, and on into the 11th century. In 2014, a group of longboat anchors washed ashore in Galicia, and evidence of Viking construction was found on a beach in the area. Today Galicia and Denmark have an unlikely friendship: the twinned Galician municipality of Catoira (pictured) and the Danish town of Frederikssund both host annual Viking games and festivals with staged onslaughts, traditional dances and lots of wine and food.

Looking east, the Vikings ventured along the rivers Volga and Dnieper, controlling the trade routes of the Slavic populations of eastern Europe. They established a ruling dynasty under the semi-legendary Varangian chieftain Rurik in AD 862 and became known as the Rus Vikings, while forming the Kievan Rus state in modern-day Ukraine.

Following Rurik's death, the city of Kiev passed to his Varangian successor Oleg the Prophet in AD 882. A few generations later, Oleg's grandson Vladimir the Great converted the region to Christianity. The Rus and Slavic peoples gradually assimilated, and remnants of Kiev’s Viking past include an object with the face of Norse god Odin and silver cross pendants found at the Mikhailovsky Monastery (pictured), which formed part of a large 12th- to 13th-century hoard found at the site.

Once they reached the Caspian Sea in western Asia in the 9th century, according to certain texts, the Vikings travelled over 3,100 miles (5,000km) on to the likes of Baghdad and possibly even Afghanistan and Kazakhstan on camel caravans. However, sources describe these Vikings as merchants and labourers focused on trade with the wealthy Abbasid Caliphate, rather than ransacking and pillaging.

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Arabic-inscribed Abbasid coins have been found in former Viking marketplaces in Northern Europe, while one Swedish archaeologist argues that Arabic script is woven into some Viking burial clothes (although this has been disputed). Even though the northmen were typically seen as barbarous and dirty, it seems the learned people in this region were still impressed by the Vikings; Abbasid writer Ahmad ibn Fadlan describes their "perfect physiques".

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