A nearby island, with long and beautiful sandy beaches, where the sea is tinged with paradisiacal Caribbean colors, and where nature, invigorating, is omnipresent… Gotland is a bit like the Corsica of the Swedes, who like to come escape to the edge of the Baltic. Because here there is space: 176 km long, 52 wide, 3,000 km2… and only 61,000 inhabitants, although the population increases sharply in summer, with the luckiest Stockholmers owning a family home there. It is in the pretty Hanseatic city of Visby (pronounced “Vizbu”) that you disembark, by ferry or plane, to discover a historic center and a medieval citadel classified as World Heritage by Unesco.
No wonder Visby caught the attention of the sages of this honorable institution. Here, as soon as you look ahead, everything breathes history with a capital H, those of the Vikings and warriors. To dive deeper, take a short tour of the city museum, the Gotlands Museum Fornsalen – literally “the hall of antiquities” – in the old town.
There are treasures there: silver jewelry from the Viking Age, medieval armor evoking the Danish invasion of 1361, but also pieces from the Stone Age, the Viking era and the Middle Ages. The local Geo Trouvetou sometimes discover them buried on the beaches or in their gardens: in 2020, a resident of the south of the island found more than fifty pieces dating from the Viking Age in a rabbit hole. The museum also offers a dive into the particular geology of the island, between coral reefs and limestone stones.
Since the Viking era, Gotland has remained a strategic place in the Baltic; during the Cold War, its proximity to the Baltic countries and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad placed it at the heart of Swedish defence. And in January 2022, as war was looming in Ukraine, the army was deployed en masse there to deal with the Russian threat.
Knights, Princesses and Trunk Throwing
The old town of Visby, surrounded by its high ramparts and its twenty-seven towers – the oldest, Kruttornet, dates from 1166 –, with its small cobbled streets and its houses dating from the 12the in the fourteenthe century with a colorful facade, offers a walk accessible to all ages. The place served as inspiration for the imaginary town of Koriko, where lives Kiki, the little witch from the animated film by Hayao Miyazaki released in 1989.
Many craftsmen have taken up residence there, and in their shops offer designer objects, custom-made furniture, ceramics, silver jewelery and even warm clothing knitted from sheep’s wool, the island’s emblematic animal. The essential? The monumental open-air ruins of the Sankta Karin church, inaugurated in 1412.
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