The Visby Shore Excursion was my favorite of our 21 day cruise with the Holland America Rotterdam. Visby is a Swedish 13th century Hanseatic medieval village on the island of Gotland in the Baltic. The City Wall still encircles the village and has more than 20 towers. Adding to its charm are traditional homes on meandering streets and more than 15 churches in ruins that you can explore.
The cruise ship offered a free shuttle to the old city walls, but we opted to make the 20 minute walk to town before the shuttle even started operating. The sun was shining brightly, the skies were a deep blue and the temperatures were perfectly pleasant as we strolled along the tree lined pathway. We had lucked on our Visby Shore Excursion.
I had created my own map of Visby, but you almost don’t need one because everything is so close together. The abundance of church ruins, quaint traditional buildings, city walls, towers and entrance gates makes for an unforgettable experience that is difficult to put into words. After a couple hours we had covered most of the town, so we took the free shuttle back to the ship in preparation for our Holland America Shore Excursion on the Gotland Vintage Railway.
Our Gotland Vintage Railway started off on the wrong foot. Two of the buses left immediately, but ours waited 15 minutes for 2 missing passengers. When we finally set off, they announced we would visit the old town first and then the railway, which threw off my plans to do a second tour of the old town on my own after the railway. When we finally reached one of the City Wall gates by bus, we spent more than 10 minutes listening to the history of Visby before we took a step through the gate. I was losing patience.
Once we entered the old town we soon spent nearly another 10 minutes on history lessons at the viewpoint overlooking the old town. The day was just too lovely to spend listening to a guide. I let the guide know we were leaving the group and she was very accepting. She asked where we would go and I said we hadn’t covered the northwest corner. She smiled and suggested we climb the tower there. Then she added that anywhere in Visby that we chose to go would be lovely.
I loved this second visit on our own just as much as the first one a few hours earlier. The skies were blue and the temperature was perfect. We climbed the Snäckgärds Gate Tower and strolled down the beach promenade just outside the walls. The sea breeze made the walk an experience that you wished would never end. We also crossed through the Botanical Gardens and revisited some of our favorite spots from earlier that morning. The only thing we didn’t find was the blue Själsö Bageri bakery van, which is supposed to bring in the best pastries on the island.
Visby was definitely my favorite port of call on our 3 week Baltic / Norwegian cruise.
