Visby

OK, so it took two weeks, but this post will be about my weekend trip with Luca to Visby. Visby is on the western coast of the island of Gotland (Sweden) and is considered to be one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Indeed, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The island was once valued by surrounding nations; it was taken over by Denmark in 1361 but was then conquered by Sweden in 1645. Russia even ruled the island for a couple of months in the early 1800's, but Sweden peacefully regained control. As a side note, if you're ever going to be in Sweden for more than a couple of days, this place is a must-see. It was like something out of a fairy tale.

Visby is most famous for its medieval ring wall, which was first constructed in the 12th century and then reconstructed in the 13th to its current height; over the next 200 years or so, towers were added.

Interesting to me were the saddle towers. Of the 22 originals, 9 remained, and after observing the pattern of damage to the wall, it looked as if many of the places where the wall had collapsed once had a saddle tower. Just by looking at a saddle tower, one can see that it can make the local area of the wall top-heavy. Some were being supported by steel beams, a preservation method that is actually controversial to the locals because no steel was used in the wall's original construction.

Of course, Visby wouldn't be what it is without a sleu of church ruins. At first, I thought that the damge to the old churches was natural. In reality, when the Lubecks invaded Visby in 1525, they burned down all of the churches except for St. Mary's Cathedral. Incredibly, the ruins were left largely untouched.

St. Per and St. Hans:

St. Nicholas:

St. Mary's Cathedral is the only one of Visby's original churches still intact today. It was originally built in the 12th century and gained its current appearance, with the three towers, for lack of a better word, in the 13th century. Luca commented that it was the most beautiful church he had ever seen... and he's from Italy.

While in Visby, Luca and I visited Gotlands Museum (the Museum of Gotland), which chronicled the history of the island. Gotland has been inhabited since the Stone Age, but obviously most of the recorded history is much more recent. The museum contained the world's largest hoard of Viking silver (Spillingsskatten) with silver coins and jewelry on display. Viking weapons and tools were also shown. There were a couple of rooms dedicated to church artifacts, and there were wooden carvings and sculptures from some of Gotland's earliest churches. Christianity first came to Sweden in the 12th century, ending the Viking Era and beginning the Middle Ages.

The battle of July 1361 is famous; King Valdemar of Denmark crushed the inhabitants of Gotland to gain control of the island. The museum had an exhibition of weapons and armor from the battle, and even some skeletons to show the types of injuries that typical warriors would endure. Cryptic? A little. Interesting? Totally.

Another interesting exhibit was the basement. The museum was in a very old building and likely had a typical Middle Ages foundation. The basement was laid out as a simulation of a typical Medieval basement. Really interesting was the relative modernity of their waste disposal system, which was pretty much an underground network to carry waste outside of the city walls. Most people got their water from wells, which were also often located in the basement.

There were also some interesting structures outside of the city walls:

St. George's Church:

Don't really know:

At the time we didn't know it, and there were no signs around for information, but this structure was actually the only remaining Medieval gallows in Northern Europe:

And now for some scenery: