Early morning in Visby… Silence and sunshine… I wanted to memorize the moment. Ingrid and I were on our way to exploring Gotland by car.
I loved those goats of concrete (photo below) – they were used both as obstacles against cars and benches for people. Many visitors were taking selfies with them:
A receptionist from our hotel arranged a car for us, and we needed to pick it up from Uthyringen located in the Visby harbour. The car was an old good Volvo, and it drove fine. But – the indicator of the gas level didn’t work, and the breaks were very weak. So you might want to have a test ride, before you rent your car there.
Ingrid and I wanted to see raukas – the natural sights Gotland is also known for. Rauka is an abrasion-shaped rock, a geological weathering phenomenon that is formed when relatively softer rocks at beaches are eroded by the surrounding sea and a harder limestone core remains.
We drove north on the western side of the island , and on our way stopped by other places that attracted our attention. Själsö fishing harbour:
On the other side there is a bakery with outdoor sitting and a view to the harbour. There is also food & drink at the bakery.
Själsö fishing village:
A suitable decoration in one of the windows:
We soon reached the first rauka site – Grausne Norra.
The next rauka we saw was the tallest one on Gotland – Jungfrun.
Jungfrun is found on a steep coastline in the Jungfrun nature reserve near Lickershamn fishing village. The rough Jungfrun reaches 12 meters above the plateau, and it stands 26 meters above sea level. We walked a bit on the pebble beaches of the village, and enjoyed the view to the cliffs and Jungfrun.
We continued our journey and drove by a church (photo below). We thought it looked so great that we turned back to see it.
Lärbro Church is one of Gotland’s largest and is characteristic with its octagonal tower. Its western portal is richly chopped. Lärbro Church was built at a formerly strategically important position, and the oldest part of the church ensemble is a defensive tower. The tower was erected at the end of the 12th century in five storeys. It was originally twice its present size. The tower was damaged by a storm in 1522 so severely that the top floor was removed. Today it is used for temporary exhibitions.
Our next stop was Lergrav nature reserve on the north-east coast of Gotland. We started from cafe, as we wanted a break and some relaxation time. There was a little harbour with two fishing boats, and a nice outdoor sitting.
Delicious smoked fish was sold in the cafe. Unfortunately, it was too early for us to have lunch. Also, we wanted to see as much of the island, as we could. Ingrid dreamed of Swedish meat balls, I hoped to get smoked fish somewhere later. So we settled for a home-made ice-cream and coffee in the garden, that had a rauka field in the background, and a USSR-something in the corner:
A typical fence we saw in many places on Gotland:
The Lergrav rauka site covers 6.9 hectares, it is about 800 m long, beautifully overlooking the beach at Lergravsviken. One of the very known raukas – Lergravsporten (freely translated as “the gate to Lergrav”):
After driving a bit around, we made our way back to the harbour of Visby where we handed our rented car over to the car hire office. The weather was slightly changing, and we new the thunderstorms were on the way.
In the airport, our Norwegian sister was parked by the ours DC-3 side. It was raining; we waved goodbye to her:
Mogens, our pilot in command, did a short briefing before we took off. He told us about the weather, and that we might have to divert, or even land somewhere else than Roskilde, our destination.
And John took a co-pilot seat on the inbound flight. He flew us to Visby the day before:
It was so fascinating to fly by the side of a front in Sweden, and to observe its development:
I took at least a hundred photos of it.
And I secretly hoped that the bad weather would make us to land on Bornholm where we could spend one more day! I tried it before on a tour with DC-3: on our way back home from Norway we had to land in Aarhus due to a weather front. A bus was arranged for those who needed to get home. I stayed over in Æbeltoft together with the crew; we flew home the day after in pure sunshine.
Unfortunately for me, this time the front was not exactly on our way, and our experienced pilots made it to Roskilde with no challenges.
Ulrik took this group photo when we arrived:
We had a kind of an after-party in a cafe in the Roskilde airport, with beers and drinks, sharing our stories from the tour.
Many thanks to all for the great tour and wonderful time together!