Gotland, Sweden
Today was a special day for so many reasons! Our first real Zodiac landing took us to the beautiful limestone island of Stora Karlsö off Gotland. The skies were only slightly overcast and the sun threatened to shine on our adventures. Our local guides were waiting to take us on several different walking tours, focussing on the unique landscape (Alvar) on the top of the raised limestone pavement area where so many species of plants could still be seen even this late in the season.
This rare habitat is restricted to few places on the globe (the largest area in Europe is the island of Öland, but Northwest Estonia and the Great Lakes area of Michigan also share this ecosystem). The lighthouse was a focus of attention, as were the fine archaeological remains littering the now uninhabited island.
A massive cave could be seen from the landing and we learnt that this place (called Stora Förvar, or large store, pictured below ) had been occupied for over 9000 years. Starting with Mesolithic hunters who came to the island to hunt seal - the earliest occupation in this part of the Baltic- the next wave of people from a couple of thousand years later settled there and left behind their pottery to identify them. Following on successive settlers of the Bronze Age and Iron Age and even the Vikings of the 9th or 10th centuries AD and later all used this deep cave for shelter. Over 6,500 kgs of bone (animal and human) were recovered from this one site! Elsewhere on the island large mounds of stones – burial cairns – could be seen and excavations allow us to date these to the period 200-400AD.
Our next port of call was Visby on the island of Gotland, some 15 miles or so away. We arrived in the wonderful medieval town in bright sunshine! Guided walks of the medieval walls, which survive for over 3kms in length and in places almost to full height surround one of the best preserved medieval towns in Northern Europe. The narrow streets thread between houses with plastered frontages which we now easily recognise as being Hanseatic. Guild Members from Visby actually were responsible for setting up the Hanseatic trading Guilds in Riga and by the 1400s Visby had taken over from Lübeck as headquarters of the powerful merchant league.
Part of the visit to Visby included the fine Gotlands Fornsal (museum) with its magnificent displays of Viking picture stones and rune stones as well as huge quantities of silver, brought to Gotland in the Viking period from dozens of Eastern mints (including Basra, Baghdad as well as mints in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Iran). 700 Viking hoards of silver are known from the island, a new one being found each year through ploughing the fields! The largest find was made at Spillings in the north of Gotland in 1999 and weighed a total of 64 kgs!! The island was so wealthy in the Viking period because we think it acted as a toll for silver moving to Scandinavia across the Baltic from the silver-rich areas of the East.
Free time to visit the Botanical Gardens and of course the local handicraft shops rounded off this most perfect of days..and the sun was still shining!
