Day: August 4, 2025

August 4, 2025

Oskarshamn to Visby, Sweden

As planned, we left with plenty of time to catch the ferry. We took a side trip to a coffee shop to wait and on the way I found the limit of my e-bike. There was a short but VERY steep climb. I think Rick estimated 17% grade, and no matter what, my bike wasn’t going up it. Rick pushed it up.

Got to the ferry. SO BIG!

And a “pet lounge”!

Arrived in Gotland about 4:30 and biked through the very crowded touristy town of Visby, up a steep hill (that I COULD climb) to our apartment. Settled in and walked out around the walled city.

We are here for a medieval festival in honor of the battle of Visby in 1361. The Danish king invaded Gotland and slaughtered about half the males on the island. It happened in a hot summer and they left the dead on the field and eventually buried them in mass graves, leaving their armor on the bodies. When Rick was in the SCA, he made armor based off the archeological dig from that battle. There are reenactments of the Battles of Visby and Masterby. We plan to see the Masterby reenactment.

We got up reasonably early, and cycled over to the ferry pier. About 3 hours early. OK, so we overachieved; the office wasn’t even open. We rode back into town to wait in a local coffeehouse.

Big ferries are their own adventure. Cars line up a couple of hours in advance. When the ferry docks, cars pour out at an incredible pace, and load just as fast. Typically, regardless of how late a cyclist arrives, they move to the front of the line and load first, with a wave of cars following right behind. The compressed few days of ferries from Gotland > Stockholm, and then the same day (technically across two days) Stockholm > Helsinki, only the next day (again, across two days) of the ferry to Tallinn will be a lot of travel chaos. I look forward to that being in my past.

A quiet several hour ferry ride brough us to Gotland. After some confusion off the ferry (and Linda getting trapped in a roundabout) we found the way to our apartment in Visby, where we will stay for the next few days, visiting the Medieval Week festival.

In the evening, we walked halfway around the wall surrounding the town.