Historic Walking Tour of Visby
On our cruise through the Baltic Sea, we stopped at Visby, Sweden, which is on the island of Gotland. It was by far one of the smallest cities we visited during this trip, with just about 25,000 residents.
We chose an easy walking tour through NCL to learn about the culture and history of the city and it delivered! Unfortunately, they are no longer offering the tour we went on, but these two options are similar if you are interested in a similar experience: Medieval Visby or Visby Walk & Historical Museum.
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Our tour started with a quick bus ride to drop us off closer to the city.
During which, we all received these headset devices. While the cheap single headphone wasn’t the most comfortable to wear all day, it was a great addition to the excursion.
Having these devices meant we didn’t have to huddle close to the tour guide, and she was able to speak easily and explain the various things we were seeing all day.
I think we have had something similar once or twice in the past, but they are always enjoyable to use. It makes everyone’s lives easier when you have such a big group you are trying to guide around.
The walking portion of our tour started at Almedalen Park, which during the medieval times it was the original harbor for Visby. In the 1800s it was formed into a park and remains the same today. It provided some beautiful city skyline views, including the Visby Cathedral and St Karin ruins.
We were only there for a few minutes and then made our way into the city.
This was our first up-close view of the city wall, which extends just over 2 miles (3.5 km). The first section we came to was Kruttornet or ‘gunpowder tower’ which was built in the 12th century (along with the entire wall) to defend the city.
Our walk took us through the city, where you could see homes and businesses throughout.
Visby is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and we learned about some of the extensive actions taken to maintain (and probably exceed) these standards. The entire city is an incredibly well-preserved medieval city which was amazing to see.
Our guide talked about the permission required to do anything to your home or business if it is inside the city walls. Not only are the obvious modifications and enhancements required to be approved, but even redoing the paint on your building has to be approved first, and don’t even consider changing the colors you have.
While I could never live within the city for these reasons, they do make the city beautiful, and I am glad someone is putting up with it!
Next on our tour was the DBW’s Botanical Garden. While the gardens were nice, it was pretty small and not too much to see or do.
However, we did come across the coolest tree I have ever seen. At first glance, it looks like a very green pine tree. As you get closer you can see that all the branches actually tip up which gives it a unique shape. Then as you look at the branches themselves, you see that it is not pine needles, but rather leaves that are twisting around in a spiral (look towards the bottom of the right image).
If you are interested, it is called Araucaria araucana (wiki article) or monkey puzzle tree and is native to central and southern Chile and western Argentina.
Don’t worry, it’s not lost on me that one of my favorite sights from this city was a tree not even native to the area. Oops!
After the gardens, we took a nice “happy” stop at the Galgberget Nature Reserve, where our main stop was to visit the Visby Gallows.
As with most things this entire trip, the age of the areas and structures we came across was truly impressive. The gallows are estimated to have been built in the 15th century and are still standing today, minus the wood poles on top.
Next, we were off to the City Wall again, towards the Visby Cathedral. We used a different entrance this time, named Dalmansporten. Unfortunately, I don’t remember specifics on what made this entrance so unique, but it was considerably thicker than other entries we had used.
On the other side of the wall, the Visby Cathedral (previously Sankta Mara) was clearly visible. This is the oldest standing and functional church from the 12th century in Visby.
As always I am baffled by the amount of time, money, and resources used to create these massive and intricate buildings for churches and temples, but it does make for a pretty view!
Our walk continued through downtown Visby where there was a market available with food and souvenir booths. Nathan couldn’t resist grabbing some roasted cinnamon almonds, which worked as our food requirement ;).
The last stop was at the St. Karin Cathedral Ruins, which we saw from the beginning of our trip, standing above the majority of the buildings.
That concluded our excursion, and we were on our way back to the ship!
I do have to admit that while our visit was good, it probably won’t be somewhere we visit again anytime soon. There really wasn’t much more to experience, so while we want to explore more of Sweden, Visby is officially complete!
Also, last note because I find it funny. If you are reading our full trip experience, you may know that we weren’t feeling our best at this point in the trip. While we had a minor cold and took a lot of precautions on and off the ship just in case, we weren’t feeling 100%. So I find it hilarious that of all the cities and places, we probably took the most selfies here. I think subconsciously, we wanted to show that we felt better than we were. So know that any smiles here might be a touch fake as we powered through.
We were also exhausted after this small excursion, so we went straight back to our room to relax and rest for the rest of the day. I think we left once for a quick bite, and then it was back to napping and watching movies.
If you would like to read more about this cruise or the other stops we made along the way, here are some quick links for you!
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