A stop on the west coast of Gotland

The original plan was to rent two small motorcycles and tour the island of Gotland.  Things don’t always go as planned.  We ended up two on one large bike, and we saw about half the island.

The west coast of Gotland

We headed north out of Visby on 149.  The bike was bigger than I am used to, and I am also not used to having a passenger, but with time I felt ok.  I like the feel of driving a bike and being in the elements, but the drawback is that it takes a lot of dinking around to stop and take photos, so you end up taking less.  Touring on bikes means you get a great experience, and less photos.

The area between Visby and Farosund to the north is interspersed with farms and very small settlements.  We stopped at one beach type area on the west coast that was all closed up, something we would see a lot.  We spoke later with a shop keeper in Visby and were told that the restaurants in Visby shut down in Oct and don’t open again until May.  This was definitely at the end of the tourist season.  Another shop keeper told me it was a great time to be in Gotland as most of the tourists had left.

The picture stone at the Bunge open air museum

Bunge Museet picture stone detail

We stopped at Bunge Museet, the open air museum in Bunge (www.bungemuseet.se), a good museum with examples of farms and homes from different centuries.  They also had some picture stones.

A building at the Bunge Museet, Gotland

The interior of the 18th century fisherman’s cottage at the Bunge open air museum

After heading as far north as possible, without going to the island of Faro, we turned south along the east coast of the island.  Stopping briefly for lunch, we traveled as far south as Ljugarn, before turning westbound back to Visby.  We drove through some very scenic farming areas with horses, cows and sheep, but could not stop for photos.

Me on the big bike in Ljugarn

At the end of the road in Ljugarn with the Baltic Sea in the background

Back in Visby, we had dinner at a small and very local place called Bakfickan, recommended for its fish soup.  So once again, fish soup for dinner.  It was good.  An after dinner stroll and then back to Hotell Gute.  I mistakenly thought we could see the entire circumference of the island in one day.  It would take at least two, maybe three.  This wasn’t the first time that I overestimated the ground/miles that could be covered in one day.

The fish soup

Visby’s stortorget at night. The pin pricks of light on the ground are tiny lights imbedded in the cobble stones. They looked like stars on the ground.

The following images are postcards of what we saw during our motorcycle tour but were unable to photograph: