Visby

19 July- today was a longish travel day. I did at times question why I thought it was a good idea to fly into and out of Stockholm for essentially one whole day on the island of Gotland but once we arrived I remembered that the town we are in on Gotland is meant to be pretty special and it did mean we were not just seeing Stockholm.

Gotland is the biggest island in the Baltic Sea so has quite a checkered past. It has been ruled by the Danes, Teutonic Knights and pirates at various stages, even Russia briefly. Now it is part of Sweden.
It was part of this Hanseatic League I keep running into on this trip. Didn't plan it but it seems to have turned into a bit of a Hanseatic League holiday.

We are staying in a town called Visby. It is a medieval walled city with the wall still in tact. There are many many crumbling churches and old wooden and stone buildings around the place. It also has beaches and given it is summer there are Europeans galore enjoying their summer. We walked briefly along the edge of the Baltic  after dinner- seemed surreal mingling with the Swedes barbecuing along the edge of the Baltic enjoying the sun. Of course the sun does not set until about 11pm so everyone is out late.

Great dinner at one of the many restaurants here and we both had... Swedish meatballs- of course. It seemed compulsory to have meatballs. For some reason I remembered the Swedish chef in the Muppets who cooked meatballs all the time and said 'nurdle nurdle'  a lot I think. Anyway the Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes, sweet pickled pickles and some berries were delicious.

Hope it is sunny again tomorrow as looking forward to walking around the city Walls.