Clarion Hotel Wisby Visby

... and sunny, as my whole summer has been.

Visby has been around since the 900's at least, was a member of the Hanseatic League in the 1200's and still retains most of the city wall built in the 12 and 1300's. Lena lives inside the city wall and the houses are very beautiful and kept up nicely. There are also about 6 churches in the inner city which are left as ruins and are just part of the landscape.

A few things about Swedish people - they love coffee (any time of the day or ...

... outside of display stating that this was not sure children was definitely right. They had also tied it into execution in modern times, calling for a stop to it.

The rest of the day was spent resting and eating, relaxing after climbing stairs and walking around all day. I could already feel that my legs were going to be sore the next day. Good thing that all we had planned for the next day waas the two and a half hour walking tour of the city.

... Its very interesting wandering around in there, especially in the rooms that are actually used, or were used and are still decorated in that way. After the changing of the guard, it did get busier in there again, including about four huge tours of Italian tourists wandering around all over the place.

From here we went into the royal armoury, or "livrustkammaren" as the title went. This is the second time that I had been there, and not much had changed. They ...

... for the day, allowing us to use the amusement park (Sommarland) and water park (Vattenland) as much as we wanted. The amusement park had a small roller coaster, go-karts, paddle boats, and some other small thrill-rides. It's a very scaled-down version of Valley Fair, but the kids had an absolute blast. The weather was in our favor as well, as the cool breeze we felt the day before was nowhere to be found. The warm winds made it a perfect ...

... though, from roaming around in their bathing suits in order to catch some rays. It's rather funny actually...I've never seen so many men make such a concerted effort to get tan! Uew!

Ok. - back to the rock formations on the beach - beautiful. The sea is very dark blue and whole area reminds me of northern Lake Millacs, with just a touch of salt in the air. Nick & Annie had to be practically pushed into the water for them to start to ...

... Unfortunately, our guide Dan said that we couldn't go up in a turbine but he did provide an in depth presentation. The kids seemed very interested and Joe Stoos especially brought up some excellent questions.After spending over an hour in Nasudden, we all hopped back in cars and headed back towards Visby. After a brief lunch we walked along the inside of the medieval city, but it was soon time to ...

16/5-19/5 We got to have breakfast with Mai and Charlotte, it was nice to see people we knew, and be able to catch up on what had been happening at home. It was also good having someone to translate the menu, no guess work that morning! The drive to Sweden meant traveling over Europe's Largest Bridge, I think it is 7.8kms. It was very long, high and expensive (about 27pounds). We were now officially over schedule, and by deciding that we would have to be in Prague by the 5th of June we ...

... solstice. Apparently everyone comes to Gotland Island and goes off into the woods to camp for the weekend. Lucky for us that we were doing the same thing. We then rented some bikes and loaded up our bags in the cart and took off outside Visby and went exploring for a place to camp. On Gotland Island you can camp anywhere you like for free as long as you are not in someone's yard. This was a perfect situation for us as we do not like ...

usually my travels have consisted of missing trains and trips taking longer than they should have... and granted it took us most the day to get to Visby on Gotland, but we were so lucky catching the connections we did.... getting off the ferry from Helsinki we caught the quick transit to Central station, where we took a while deciding which type of transit to take to the ferry terminal for Gotland... decided on the cheaper of course and then that ended a few ...

Another weekend of Swedish traditions. Sunday was the holiday Valborg. Valborg is celebrated on the 30th of April every year. It is a celebration of springtime and the end of winter. It is common to light a huge bonfire (historically bonfires were lit to keep away evil or bad spirits). Of course in Sweden, this holiday, like all others is a great oppurtunity for people to gather and eat tons of sil (pickled herring) and drink lots of Snaps (which is shots of pure vodka or ...