När socken

Today we set off on a tour of Gotland - its about 50km from west to east - so we need a hire car for the day. This is my first time driving from the front passengers seat! I was quite proud of myself getting through the day without incident - although I must admit that roundabouts had me bluffed - I just made my way through without hitting anyone!

The main road to the other side of Gotland goes through Roma - that was our first stop. We drove into a farm where Grace had taken her photos in a field of wheat a couple of weeks ago - today they are harvesting the wheat. We had a traditional Swedish lunch which included Kroppkakao a potato dumpling with pork inside - very tasty!

We drove to the east coast of Gotland, a long beach walk was in order. The east coast of Gotland is much different from the west coast - its drier and flatter. It looks like holiday homes are very popular in this part of the island - I can imagine summer here would be magical. Further along the beach we visited an area of vertical rock formations known as sea stacks. Got some great photos here - reminded me of Picnic at Hanging rock.

The roads on Gotland are first class - wide, clean and no pot holes to worry about.

There are treasures to be found on Gotland - a huge number of coins from the Middle East and Britain have been found here - strange because there is no silver in Gotland so the coins had to be "acquired" from elsewhere. In fact, there have been more silver coins found here than the total found in muslim countries around the world. Many researchers believe these hoards functioned like safe deposit boxes: Viking cash deposits were hidden in the ground for safety until needed.

Other experts suggest that the caches had a religious significance and were saved up and buried by their owners for use in the afterlife. Anyway - we didn't find any coins during our walks.

For dinner we went to the supermarket and bought salad and Atlantic Salmon - very enjoyable indeed.

Tomorrow some sightseeing in Visby - visits to museums and old churches - lots of very old stuff to see her - should be good.

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