Family Fun in Europe, Part 16: Visby

This is my sixteenth post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth posts before this one.

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Visby, Sweden

On Tuesday, July 30 we arrived in Visby, a Swedish city of about 24,000 on the island of Gotland. Visby is considered the best-preserved medieval city in Scandinavia and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. 

  

Steve, Trevor, Mom, and I took a walking tour of Visby. Our guide was such a fast walker we were speed-walking to keep up. And, he had a preference for beelining over the natural terrain instead of taking paved paths. See that lone person? That would soon be us, but I didn't know it when I took the picture. Silly me for thinking we'd use the walkway.

See? Over the hills we go!

We definitely got our exercise in that day! We covered a lot of territory and learned so much from our enthusiastic, well-informed, and eloquent guide. 

The town center of Visby is surrounded by a 2.1 mile long wall.

 Within the wall, there are many stone houses preserved in their original medieval style. 

  

Visby is built on a hill. Fortunately, our tour started at the top and ended at sea level. Good thing! I can't imagine following our guide back uphill through the fields at the end of the tour. 

That's our ship, framed by the church ruins!

This is Visby Cathedral. It was consecrated in 1225 and is the oldest (and best preserved) church building in Visby. It has been a cathedral since 1572. 

  

  

This is town square.  

Our guide gave us five minutes to look around. Naturally, I ran over to the grocery store. 

This is not mix (rimshot). 

The Swedes are extremely fond of toasts upon which to spread fish. 

Choices, choices. I'd choose Soft Musli over Supermusli and Havre Kuddar over Kalas Puffar, even though it has the more appealing packaging. 

I didn't have time to see much else, as our guide was eager to move along. We had some church ruins to visit. I didn't even get a chance to ask why there were concrete sheep in the town square. 

This is Drottens Ruin. It was built around 1240 and abandoned in 1528 during the Reformation. 

I was very surprised that we were allowed to climb around in there and touch whatever we wanted. I opted not to climb the questionable-looking steps, mostly because I was concerned I'd be all the way up the staircase when our guide announced it was time to leave and took off like a gazelle, expecting us to follow immediately. 

Off we zoomed! 

Wait - another sheep? Why? Our guide was too far ahead to ask. 

Fortunately, I got the answer at our next destination. Sheep are a living cultural heritage in Gotland and a symbol of sustainability. Sheep have literally helped shape the landscape and are beloved throughout Visby. 

So what was our next destination? The gorgeous Visby Botanical Garden. 

  

  

  

We passed through the portion of the wall that makes up the boundary of the botanical gardens and there was the Baltic Sea.  

  

This is Almedalan. It's a park, but it's also the location for an informal, weeklong annual summer event. This gathering is a place for "dialogue, exchange and unexpected meetings that help to develop our society." It sounds absolutely fascinating. 

After a fantastic tour, we arrived back at the Sky Princess. 

We loved our time in Visby and can totally see why it's such a popular summertime vacation destination for Scandinavians. We said goodbye to Sweden that evening and sailed on to the final new-to-us country of this trip. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. 

Family Fun in Europe, Part 15: Helsinki

This is my fifteenth post about our family's 2024 trip to Europe. I recommend reading the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth posts before this one.

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Helsinki, Finland

On Monday, July 29 we arrived in Helsinki, Finland. We took a tour, but we saw very little of Helsinki. Any guesses what we did instead? Here's a hint:

I'll get to that later though. First, we got on a bus. Hi Kari! Hi Allison! Hi Dad!

We drove a short distance from the pier...

... to Senate Square. The square is surrounded by four buildings: Helsinki Cathedral, the Government Palace, the main building of the University of Helsinki, and the National Library of Finland. In the center, there is a statue of Alexander II. We were there for the Guards Parade. 

Held during the summer months, the Guard Parades originally dates back to the time of Swedish rule. The current version has been an unbroken tradition since 1919, interrupted only by the Continuation War and the 2020 COVID pandemic. 

We drove by some notable sites in Helsinki. This is the Central Railway Station. 

I hadn't noticed this billboard. Of course Steve took a picture! That looks like Brayden!

And that was all we saw of Helsinki. We drove another half-hour before we reached Nuuksio National Park in Espoo. 

There is a lot to do at Nuuksio - hiking, nature centers, geocaching, swimming, cycling, and even foraging for mushrooms and berries. We did none of those. We went straight to Poro Puisto. 

Translated from the Finnish: Reindeer Park!

After a brief introduction to the resident reindeer, we got to feed them. 

I highly recommend feeding reindeer, if you ever get the chance. 

So what do reindeer eat? An average adult reindeer eats about 10 pounds of mosses, ferns, grasses, shoots, and leaves a day. During the summer, that is. I'm sure you're aware that reindeer live in snowy climates, where much of their food doesn't grow in the winter and/or gets buried in snow. During the winter, they eat mostly lichen and fungi. We fed them lichen. They loved it. 

Reindeer don't have upper teeth, so they just sort of slurped the lichen from our hands. 

Allison got to feed them the last crumbs of lichen from the bucket. 

Reindeer shed their antlers annually, so they had some there for us to "try on." 

After the feeding was over, we went into a traditional Sami dwelling. The Sami people are best known for their semi-nomadic reindeer herding. 

Inside, we had a Finnish cinnamon bun and lingonberry juice. Yum!

We had such a nice time at the Reindeer Park!

  

We loved our time with the reindeer and I would choose the same shore excursion again without hesitation. The trade-off is that we saw almost nothing in Helsinki. But that just means we need to return someday and spend more time, which we're more than happy to do. 

Tomorrow I'll tell you about our next port of call. It's a new-to-us city in a country we'd already visited during this trip.