Gotland favourites 🧡
Day 1
Day 1 was just a travel day for us, from our home in Sala to Nynäshamn. We traveled in the evening because that's when the tickets were cheaper. We got the tickets from here.
Day 2
After the ferry across we arrived in the middle of the night. This night we slept in our van at Högklint together with a lot of other campers... There was a toilet there which was great, and in the morning we took a cozy stroll around the area looking at the views. This place is still fairly touristy though and we wouldn't go here again if we could avoid it.
Then we went south, to Kovik, where we went for a little walk, and then onwards to Klintehamn. There you can go by boat out to the national parks and islands Stora and Lilla Karlsö, but we didn't this time.
If you like geocaching there are some nice ones around Klintehamn, for instance: GC59TK2 - Minnenas Magasin
GC698MB - Klinte Hamn
GC6X4MM - Gutejul 2016-04 Jullax
After Klintehamn we continued south and by Sandhamn we turned towards the coast, to take the scenic route along Ekstakusten. Do recommend!
We ended the day by visiting the famous rauk Hoburgsgubben. Since we came here during sunset, not a lot of people were here, and once the sun had set, all of them left and it was pretty much just us there. It was amazing getting that place for ourselves to explore. The sunsets at Gotland are magical, as they are by the sea. So we highly recommend going to see the sunset by the sea at least once.
Going north from Hoburgsgubben, along the road by the sea, there are plenty of places where you can park your car overnight. Just keep in mind to keep the area clean, and leave no trace!
Day 3
We started the next day by visiting Gullstainen, an erratic block moved here from Finland by the last ice sheet covering Northern Europe. In 1741 Carl von Linné visited and wrote about the rock. The rock is special in the way that it gradually decomposes into gravel, so by the side of it, you can see a pile of gravel that once was part of the rock itself.
There are two geocaches at the location:
GCZEZM - Gullstainen
GC1Q5HR - Självfrätstenen / The Self-Eroded Rock
We drove north after this, stopping at Ljugarn. We had waffles at Våffelmagasinet, but overall we didn’t like the area very much because it was very crowded and felt overly touristy. So we instead continued to Roma Kungsgård, where we went for a nice walk, looked at the ruins and read about the place’s history. We were also lucky enough to see the only running train (Museum Railway) in Gotland when we walked down to Roma Kungsgård Station. So after this, we took the car to Dalhem and Hesselby Jernvägsmuseum, just to get to see the train again. Unfortunately, we hadn’t planned this ahead of time, so we couldn’t ride with the train, but that is something you can do as well. You can find more information about the train and tickets here.
Next up on our journey was probably the coolest thing during this entire trip! We went to Tingstäde Träsk, to see Bulverket. It is the remnants of a large wooden fortification (or bulwark). When built, it consisted of a platform with houses surrounded by a double palisade with the entire construction around 250 m in diameter. It was built in the 1130s and may have been used for less than a century. Its original purpose is unknown.
We very much recommend going out on the lake with kayaks. There is a place nearby which rents out kayaks. On a calm day, you can see the logs in the water - a mindboggling experience to stare down at something so old, and so close!
For geocachers, there is a virtual cache there:
GC7B7ZQ - Bulverket
This area also had other nice places/geocaches, like:
GC1XNZ0 - Tingstäde Skans 1
GCAM2ZJ - Owl reborn
GC8YQ0K - Gute jul Reborn
GC8MB04 - Högstubbe 3:"3"
GC8YPXR - AC/DC Polvändare Reborn
GCAJJXM - Kutkäldu
We finished the day by going to Smöjen. The area is a very popular place for campers to go to, so we defintely weren’t alone. But we managed to find a great spot with nice views and also a little bit off from everybody else.
Day 4
Before leaving Smöjen we looked for another geocache:
GCW1A2 - Dykaren #2
The rest of the day was spent on Fårö. Here we visited Ryssnäs, a harbour that was used by the French and English Fleet during the Crimean War (1953-1956). In the end of August 1854 there was a colera epidemic, and around 20 English men was buried here. We also passed by Ingmar Bergman’s house on Fårö, where he also had a private cinema! “The barn at Dämba was turned into Ingmar Bergman’s private cinema, Biografen, where he came to watch films every day.” It says on Bergmangårdarna.se.
Next up we went to Ullahau Nature Reserve. A very much recommended place to visit if you find history and nature interesting. In the 18th Century there had for some time been an issue with too drastic logging, while the north part of Fårö was covered with drifting sand. Without any vegetation catching the sand it soon started to move south and form a horse hoe formed desert of dunes. The sand moved south with a speed of 3 metres per year and in some places the dunes where as high as 15 metres and this started to become a threat, so in the 19th Century, Marcus Larsson decided to try to stop it by planting lots of pine trees. Finally by the 20th Century the sand stopped moving, and Ullahau is what is left of it all. In the heart of Ullahau, you can find Ankan City, a place where someone decided to build a “city” of yellow rubber ducks.
After all this walking in the “desert” of Ullahau, we were quite sweaty and wanted to go for a swim! Norsta Auren is a long beach in the northeastern part of Fårö. It is a 4-5 km long sand beach that is quite inaccesible, but nice. This means that it is not very touristy, and if you want to go for a swim and avoid crowds, this is a good choice. We went here for a swim, but also to look for Gotland’s oldest geocache (“Beach”).
After the swim we went back to the car, and did the same with the rauk-area Langhammars, as we did with Hoburgsgubben before. We went there at sunset to avoid some crowds (there were some people there but definitely not crowded), before going to Helgumannen fiskeläge - a famous place featured in a lot of movies, and parked for the night.
Here is a list of a few geocaches relating to the above mentioned places:
GC1TAY - Ryssnäset
GC8B1E8 - #6 IB: Kinematografen
GC6H748 - Ankan City
GCCB4 - Beach
GC13EFG - Langhammar
GC29958 - Langhammars
Day 5
Today we made our way south, towards Visby. One of the places we went to was Hallshuk Viewpoint. The views from there towards the sea was really nice, and for geocachers in the are there was this really old, really nice geocache there, with it’s original log book from 2001! How cool is that?
We also went to Lummelundagrottan, a place that we have heard about before. This place was definitely a disappointment, and really felt like a touristy place you just “tick off”. The history behind the cave is indeed interesting, and we loved to get to know the history of it! But the tour from inside the cave was short, and in the “standard tour” you only walk in a small part of the cave, but you always hear about how this is the biggest cave in Sweden. We’ve also been in bigger caves outside of Sweden, in other parts of Europe, so maybe that added to it all. It also didn’t help that the tour was very much geared towards children, and we didn’t learn so much new things from it. So if you want to save some money, you can learn about the history of the cave and find a lot of information about it online, and see the outside of the cave, the entrance which Carl von Linné also visited, instead.
After Lummelunda we went to Södra Hällarna Nature Reserve. We took a long walk through the whole nature reserve, about 7 km in total, and this nature reserve is interesting in the way that it features pretty much all nature types of Gotland!
Geocaching tips:
GC26D0 - Camera
GC152H0 - Panorama
GC4KH3W - Lummelundagrottan II
Day 6
This last day on Gotland we spent the entire day in Visby. The main goal was to find all Adventure Lab Caches, which we did. We also found most (if not all?) of the traditional caches inside Visby, as well as some others too. We did not do much else besides geocaching today, but we really loved this ice cream place called Gute Glass. We’ve eaten their ice creams before, and they are so tasty, but the best part was that one stair down, along the street, they sold soft ice cream and milk shakes, and those were really lovely! Highly recommend if you, like us (or rather, like Kim) love ice cream.
We can also recommend renting a bike, like we did, to roam around the city if you have a limited time there. We rented a tandem bike, but they have regular bikes at … too, for a reasonable price. The place is called Gotland Cykeluthyrning.
Day 7-8
During the night we took the ferry back, this time to the other port and made our way home from there. Of course geocaching along our way home!
We had a lovely time on Gotland, and it was a lot less touristy in most places we visited, than we had anticipated, even though we were here in July, so in the height of summer. We didn’t manage to do everything we had wished to do, so if we would come back to Gotland, this is what we would like to see or do the next time:
Medeltidsveckan
Gotlandsruss
Gotland's highest point
Museums
Gotska sandön
Link to Google Maps-list with most of the places mentioned on a map:
