Visby, Day 2

Our second day in Visby started with finding bikes to hire. We planned to cycle to a place called Tofta Strand and eat burgers for lunch on the beach. Planned being the key word.

I chose one of those classic looking city bikes you see pootling around places like Copenhagen. They always look so comfortable and the basket meant I didn’t need to carry a rucksack on my back.

It was a bad choice. I struggled the whole way; I’m not sure whether it was the bike itself or the upright position. We switched bikes for a bit and Scott said riding mine was like cycling through sand. The hybrid one he chose (the same type we had in the UK) was so much easier to ride! I used to want a city bike but it turns out they are better suited to slower rides than covering miles. My rear was happy on the sprung saddle though.

We got chatting to a man at Tofta Strand and he said the beach is a nice place in the Summer when everything is open and there is somewhere to sit and have a meal. When everything is open? Uh oh. He was right… nothing was open. Two squares of chocolate and a few pieces of dried mango would need to fuel us for the remaining thirteen miles back to the hotel if we couldn’t find anything.

The beach was nice but the seaweed absolutely stank! We walked for a while but didn’t stay too long because hunger was already setting in. All of the cafes we passed on the way there were closed but we remembered seeing a sign advertising fresh vegetables. I said I’d eat raw carrots for lunch if that’s all they had.

We retraced our route back to the sign and spotted a red wooden building behind a gate — Krokstäde Tröskvandring cafe. An “öppet” sign was a welcome sight because we knew there would be something. Hooray!

The cafe was closed due to Coronavirus but the owners stocked packaged homemade food on the counter instead. And thanks to the marvel that is Swish, we were able to pick up what we fancied and pay using our phones (by entering a mobile number and an amount) with no contact. We ate cardamom biscuits, blackberries and fruity knäckebröd in the garden.

Cycling back to the hotel wasn’t too bad on half full bellies and we took it in turns to ride my crappy bike. It was a little cooler too. There really wasn’t much between Visby and the next big town but there were a few interesting buildings dotted around.

It turns out we cycled 26 miles! Pretty good considering we hadn’t cycled in over a year and only ate snacks. We had an early dinner back in Visby and ordered the bugers and chips missing from lunch. I ordered Mississippi mud pie for pudding — which shows how hungry I was because I never order things that are so deathly sweet.

Food in our bellies was a great energy boost so we walked along the seafront for a while. Seagulls and ducks were putting themselves to bed on the rocks. I felt like I never wanted to eat again after that pudding. We carried on walking until there was no more light, then made our way back to the hotel.