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Gotland is a very special place. What people generally know about the largest and most beautiful island in The Baltic Sea in not always right. It's much better.
Eighthundred kilometers of coast, 1530 kilometres of roads, Gotland is Swedens largest island with a population of 57000 that increases to nearly one million visitors each year. Visby is the capital with 23000 inhabitants of which 2200 are priviligied to live inside the old town, surrended by the UNESCO listed city wall.
Trade and industry is dominated by tourism and meeting industry, agriculture and dairy refining (developing also organic growth), art and handicraft, education, small manufacturing industry, limestone extracting and processing and a small yet existing fishing fleet. Gotland has most horses per capita in the whole of Sweden and is also it´s smallest region (county, municipality and diocese in one). There are more sheeps on Gotland than people, 2000 farms on Medieval grounds, it is also a hot spot for most cars per capita in Sweden – you don´t see them, as most are older cars and parked in barns on the countryside. One theory is the prohibition of using salt to melt ice on the roads during winter. Gotlandic cars just last longer!
Undoubtably Gotland is the location for the world´s largest ever found Viking Age silver treasure, we have 92 well preserved Medieval Churches (still used for service) and in Visby itself 12 Medieval Church or Convent ruins. Gotland has a university, college, high schools and primary schools, top-modern hospital, health-centers, footboll plans, ice-hockey rinks, horse racing tracks, car racing tracks, a congress arena for 1000 persons, shops, around 160 restaurants and cafés of which an eighties in Visby and at least halv of them opened all year around (it´s still enough to place Visby on top of the list with restaurants per capita!)
Gotlands largest communities are Hemse, Slite, Klintehamn and Farosund (Fårösund). The island of Faro (Fårö) has a population of approximately 600. Until the decease of famous director Ingmar Bergman in july 2007, there was none, with no exception, that ever told a tourist the exact location of his home on Faro. They truly protected him with silence.
The dialects spoken on Gotland are common Gotlandic, Faro (Fårö) tongue and Nar (När) tongue. A few speak Stockholm tongue. You can become a Gotlander being an immigrant from the mainland, yet never a Gute whoom are always born on the island, perferrably with no mix at least 6 generations back. It is said that a genuine Gute with at least 10 generations of Gotlandic legacy has an extra vertebra. Most likely an island phenomenon.
Travelling to Gotland takes 25 – 35 minutes with daily flights from Stockholm. There is not bus service at the airport of Visby, but local taxi only takes a 5 minutes ride into the old town of Visby and The Medieval Hotel. If you choose the high speed ferry transportation it will take approximately 3 hrs. There are several car rentals in Visby, but you may also bring your car on the ferry. Public transports on the island is concentrated around school hours and not a transport we recommend for exploring Gotland. Some taxi companies have guide services. For the 170 kilometers between south to north, you can consider a 2,5 hrs drive – with no stops for recreation! (See our tips for exploring journeys!)
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