Gotland, June 1999
Gotland is a lovely place. I travelled there with two other fellows, Michiel Arnoldus from the Nederlands and Patrice Letard from France. We camped out all over the island and managed to make a general ruckus. For our first evening we stayed with a friend of Michiel's, the charming Maria, in Wisby, the capital city of Gotland. (She aided us by letting us stay at her parents apartment and use their showers.)Wisby was once a major trading city for the vikings and then a major city in the Hanseatic league. The old city is still surrounded by a well preserved defensive wall with towers. The old city has lovely narrow cobble stone streets ambling around many old buildings. In the center of the old city stand the walls of a once magnificent but now destroyed cathedral, which serve as a reminder of when the Danes invaded the city back in the 1600's. Just near to the cathedral is the second most important site in Wisby, the local brewery which makes a fine beer, surprisingly called Wisby. Interesting to note is that those who live on Gotland have a special right to brew their own special type of beer/spirits.
The second day of our trip took us 15 km south of Wisby to Tofta Beach, an inviting fine sand beach that stretches out for about one km. We relaxed, worked on our tans, played football, and sampled some beer and cold swimming on this lovely beach. In the peak of summer(July and August) this beach becomes so packed that you can barely move. However, we were there just before the waves of summer vacationers. Our evening ended with us travelling 40 km northwest of Wisby to a youth hostel, where we met some other international travellers. We camped outside of the hostel but joined the hostelers in going to a small summer pub where a two-man guitar band was playing all the hits, along to our whisky and beer.
Our third day began with us sneaking in to use the hostels facilities for free. We then travelled out to the little island of F�r�, which lies of the north west tip of Gotland. This island is reknowned throughout Sweden for its strange coastal rock formations, which were created by coral growth and the effects of the ice age. We snapped some lovely picture shots and soaked up some more sun. In the late afternoon we visited a dune area on F�r�, where me managed to surprise a couple attempting to romantically couple, which was good for a few laughs. We spent the rest of the day by attempting to take facial pictures of some stupid sheep. Finally, we left the island in search of food and then camped out next to an old military bunker. We passed the night comfortably around a campfire discussing various deep thoughts.
Our next day resulted in a slow, leisurely trip down the west coast. We picniced atop some bluffs, took coffee at a handyworks place for old people, and then went back to Wisby for some reason, perhaps petrol. We then went and slept in the sand dunes behind Tofta Beach.
Our final day on Gotland went okay except for one hitch. We had breakfast at a lovely local diner, and then went south to visit the southern tip of the island. We just managed to visit a famous rock quarry and see the southern bluffs before Patrice realized he had forgotten his wallet at the diner. We raced back to the Diner at 140 km/hr only to discover that the wallet had really gone missing. It was disappointing for Patrice. After playing some frisbee, he filed a police report and then we went back to board the ferry. We did manage one last great exploit before getting onboard and that was to perturb the other waiting drivers by playing football out in the boat waiting area. And then, on the ferry we managed to play about two hours worth of some video game because it, for some reason, gave us games for a mere kronor. Great fun.
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