Having visited a dozen Hansa towns around the Baltic Sea you certainly get a fair share of de-ja-vu when strolling on the narrow streets of Visby. In this Hansaetic town on the island of Gotland located in the middle of the Baltic Sea, you can’t avoid feeling the presence of Lübeck, Riga, Danzig, Tallinn, Stralsund and Wismar and even Novgorod the Great in Russia. And it wasn’t actually until 1645 at the Treaty of Brömsebro, that the island became truly Swedish. Vikings, the Hansa and Denmark did their best to run the town and the island through the previous centuries.

The most notable objects in Visby is the 3,6 km long stone wall – Ringmuren – said to be the best preserved in its kind in Northern Europe. The wall with its many towers encircles the old town and protect the many cathedral ruins and the small merchant houses. Visby is also one of the most popular destinations for tourism in Sweden making it completely swamped with people between mid-June until mid-August. It is therefore my advice to try and avoid those months unless you are heavily into partying with the Swedes, something that also could be quite a fun experience…!

If you are hooked on Vikings, the island of Gotland is virtually littered with remains but an absolute must is to visit the small museum in Visby – Fornsalen – where you find an absolute brilliant collection of runic stone, truly the best of the best you can find; brilliantly decorated stones telling stories about wars, foreign travels and domestic dramas.

In my personal opinion, Visby is the cultural World Heritage Site most worth visiting in Sweden. Getting there, you can either catch the fast-ferrys from Nynäshamn or hop on one of the almost hourly planes from Stockholm. Allow at least two hotel nights to get the feel for this brilliant Hansa town and maybe stay on for a few extra days to discover the rest of the island.