One thing I’ve found on this cruse is that google watches, phones and Microsoft can never agree on the right time! This resulted in an unplanned lie in this morning!
We arrived in Visby around 0800 this morning, we had originally planned a hop-on hop-off bus tour, but this ws canceled for “operational reasons”. After a little googling it appears hop-on hop-off have vacated Visby! By now it was too late to book another tour so we decided to walk into the old city.
After a late breakfast we headed out for the walk. Visby is the main town on the island of Gotland, about 200kms south of Stockholm in the Baltic.
Our walk took us over a metal bridge crossing the highway, then a long a gravel path into town. This time of year there were plenty of flowers in bloom.
On past a small waterfall
Then into the edge of the town about 2km later.
Once in town we had no specific plans, but as we turned the corner we say one of those touristy “railway trains” that run on the road. It would give us a 30 minute tour around the the town.
At the time we didn’t take the phrase “around the town” too literally, but that is what it did, it took us around the outside of the walled city. Below are a series of pictures, mostly of the city walls and various gates. The walls were built back in the 1200’s not to keep foreign attackers out, but to keep farmers from outside the town out! seems Visby wanted all foreign trade in foodstuffs to themselves.
Once off the “train” it was time to get some sustenance to prepare us for more exercise, an after eight gelato fitted the bill nicely.
We decided to go and visit 2 churches in the city, one in use and one not so.
The first was the ruins of St. Karin, built around the middle of the 11th century.
The other church was the Cathedral of Ste. Maria
From here we started our walk back to the boat, some general views below.
Five miles walking and we finished up back at the ship. Tomorrow is a sea day as we make our way to our last port of call, Kristiansand in Norway. There probably won’t be a blog.