This Week: My favorite Island!

Today we are going on a little trip (again). This time around I am going to take you to the island of Gotland.
Gotland is one of my favorite places on this earth. It is right up there along with Närpes, Finland and Stockholm, Sweden. A top three winner!
Somebody once said; Gotland is not a place, it is a state of mind!
I can only sign to that. Even though I have not been back on the island since 1995 I still feel this longing, this tug on my soul…
I think it is time for me to get back to magical Gotland soon, soon again!!!



Gotland is located out in the Baltic Sea. It is the largest island in Sweden.
If you take the midnight ferry from the city of Nynäshamn on the Swedish main-land to Visby, Gotland, you’ll see the image of Gotland show up on the horizon around 4.30 in the morning. If it is summer it’ll be light outside, a sort of blue-ish light on the sea. All of a sudden a fairytale island takes form right in front of your eyes. There it is!!! The beauty, the magic, the fairytale!!!
Deep inside you’ll feel true happiness! You have finally arrived!

You dock in the medieval city of Visby, complete with a ring wall, old churches and old houses. Welcome to the medieval time, folks! You have arrived!

When I was younger me and my friends used to bike around this island! The four of us would arrive with our bikes, and the entire luggage safely secured on the parcel carrier. Our destination was always Fårö, which is where we started our tour. Fårö is located in the north-east of Gotland.
It is a fairytale Island within the island of Gotland. But, we did not actually physically bike up there, no; we took a bus from Visby up to Fårösund. In Fårösund we unloaded the bikes and our luggage. That’s where our biking vacation started. We were off! We boarded the car ferry over to Fårö!
Again; Welcome to the dream!

Fårö is MAGIC!!! White sandy beaches, limestone sea-stacks, lovely rocky beaches, a big light house, lots of summer houses, old farm houses, fishing villages and the stillness and the absolute beauty!
We loved it! We loved it so deeply, all four of us.
We were not party girls that wanted to hang out in Visby and party during our stay. No, we wanted to see places, bike around, feel the wind in our hair, grill hot dogs outside the tents in the evening, and drink Matues Rose wine…That’s what we wanted to do. And, we wanted to write diaries that we read aloud to each other every evening. SO, nice! I love thinking back on those summers.
I still have the memories in two albums (scrap books), I wrote down all we did, we took photos and I drew pictures. It was not that long ago since I last re-read what I wrote back then. The memories came back to me, and I just sat there---Smiling.

In 1995 Peter saw the island for the first time, and only time so far, and he got hooked! He loved it.
We have very good friends in Sweden, a couple P and P. They have a summerhouse in Visby, and back in 1995 we visited them. It’s been the only time we’ve been able to visit them in their summer house. Since then I’ve had Karolina and my friends have had two little ones.
But I certainly hope that we will return to Gotland, and be with them sometime soon again.
That year, 1995, we traveled around in P’s car. No bikes this time around. Amazing how small and easily navigated the island seemed this time around.
We drove from north to south, had coffee at little coffee shops, had smoked flounders at little sea-sheds, and had ice cream at kiosks along the way.
Until we came to a place in the middle of nowhere, a place that we all still talk about! There, on the stony field in the beautiful landscape was a restaurant that was so cozy, so lovely! SO serene! We had margarita’s there, on the deck. And the sun kept on shining!
That was in the tiny village of Hamra on the southern tip of Gotland.

I miss Gotland! I wish I could be there right now!
Keep the light going, Gotland! Keep your beauty and your magic! I’ll return! Keep the dream alive!




P.S. Sweflo! You are from my number one province in Sweden! Lucky you ;-)