It was the second and last morning of waking up to this view.
Breakfast was amazing. Scrambled eggs, roasted tomatoes and baked squash with feta. Hotel Skeppsholmen held the top spot for the best scrambled eggs (which they are famous for) but these squeezed them down to second place. Swedes makes the best scrambled eggs.
We spent most of the morning wandering around Vibsy’s old streets. The old town is surrounded by a 3.5km ring wall with defence towers from the 1200’s, when it was an important Baltic Sea trade route. Today, the wall cradles around 200 preserved buildings inside what is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Kränku tea shop was a great discovery; they have 40 own blends all mixed and packed in Visby. We’re on a bit of a tea kick lately and couldn’t leave without picking up a tin of their fruity Summer blend for fika.
I had to laugh about this 70’s looking kiosk competing with the giant medieval defence tower behind.
This gate is called Norderport (North Gate) and leads to the newer area of Visby. Switching from cobbled streets and historic buildings, to modern surroundings in the blink of an eye feels like time travel.
We picked up a few souvenirs and postcards. Most people assumed we were Swedish, which was a good test of our language skills. We did pretty well.
I bent down to pick up a piece of sea glass and a claw like stone caught my eye. Looking closer, I realised I’d found a fossil. Then I found another… and another. It took me back to fossil hunting at Lyme Regis as a kid. My Mum would have known what I was holding because she spent her whole life collecting rocks and fossils; I knew I’d found something but drew a blank at what most of them could be. I was secretly hoping for a dinsoaur tooth though.
My amateur research suggests the spiral is a gastropod (snail), and the “claws” and discs are coral fossils (maybe rugose). They are some pretty amazing beach finds. Coral is always something I’ve thought of as tropical but I’ve learnt it’s present in the Baltic Sea too.
As is often the case on Gotland, the day ended with an amazing sunset.
Next: story 4.
0 comments on “Visby, Story 3”