Stora Karlsö & Visby, Gotland
This morning we awoke early, greeted by a sunny day and delighted that our Swedish adventure was continuing. We departed from Stockholm in the late afternoon the previous day, and witnessed a spectacular sunset out on deck as we sailed through the incredibly picturesque Swedish Archipelago. The beautiful light brought out the best in the great manors and quaint summerhouses, and the weather was so nice we were treated to a buffet of typical, delicious Swedish delicacies out on deck, while we watched the bustling late summer evening boat activity around us. Crimson and black skies lingered on until the islets got further and fewer apart and we eventually reached the open waters of the Baltic Sea.
Our destination today was the largest of Sweden's islands, a real outpost in the Baltic Sea: Gotland. The main island and neighbouring islets date back 400 million years, when layers of rock were deposited in a then tropical sea in the Silurian period - upon exploring the area it is common to find many different fossils from these ancient seas. A wealth of archaeological finds has also been uncovered in the area, from the ship burials of the Bronze Age to the silver treasure of the Viking period. These prove that the island’s strategic position in the Baltic made it a huge trading area as far back as Viking times. The Hanseatic League, the great medieval alliance of trading cities, was at one point centred on Visby, the capital of Gotland, which had a huge boom in the 13th century but later declined due to power struggles and was eventually plundered by its rival Hanseatic town, Lübeck, in 1525.
During breakfast, the National Geographic Endeavour anchored just off the tiny islet of Stora Karlsö, a flat-topped islet of just one square mile rising from the sea on top of steep cliffs. This islet boasts a fascinating geology: ancient limestone deposits scoured by glaciation and subsequently eroded by different sea levels as the Baltic switched repeatedly between lake and sea over the ages. This combination of factors gave rise to the aforementioned cliffs, flat limestone platforms, ridges and caves. It was great fun to search for evidence of the ancient tropical seas that once covered this land in the marine fossils and imprints (corals, stromatolites and more) that abounded everywhere we looked, as well as explore the largest of the caves: Stora Förvar (translating to "large storage"), that has provided archaeologists with abundant evidence of repeated human settlements on the island, the earliest dating back 9500 years. The tiny islet is, in fact, special enough to have been declared a Nature Reserve (the oldest Nature Reserve in the world after Yellowstone in the US!), as the limestone plain is covered by a soil thin enough to form a challenging habitat that supports a community of plants named an alvar, found only in very few locations in northern Europe and America. For such a small island it also has an incredible wealth of prehistoric remains that include cemeteries, graves, cairns and boat depressions dating back to various periods in time. At the highest point on the island, dominating the flat landscape, is an old lighthouse that allowed those who climbed to the top spectacular views of the area, and the most stout-hearted "indulged" in a little bit of Baltic swimming from the beach near our landing spot.
Once back on board, we repositioned to Visby, a wonderful little town that was declared "the best fortified commercial city in Northern Europe” by UNESCO, who gave it World Heritage Site status in 1995. We took walks among the ruins of medieval walls and churches and through quaint streets lined with explosions of colourful roses. Among the highlights of these explorations was a beautiful botanical garden and one of the best Viking museums in the world, renowned for its wonderful collection of rune stones.
We felt sad as we left this beautiful place behind, yet also elated at being on our way to Latvia and more new discoveries.
