The beautiful Baltic island that the Swedes love (but you've probably never heard of)
I’m a big fan of a Viking. As a Brit living in Denmark for the past five years, I’ve flirted with my adopted homeland’s heritage, visited every burial site and boat shelter I could, and wracked up more rune stones than I can remember.
I swapped life as a journalist on a glossy magazine in London for rural Denmark when my husband was offered his dream job working for Lego, in Billund, and although we only ever planned to relocate for a year, we liked it so much, we stayed. We started a family and I embarked on a second career as an author.
For my latest book, I delved into traditional navigation techniques, tried my hand at Viking handicrafts, and even learned axe throwing while six months pregnant with twins. But I’ve never ventured east, following the Norse Men’s route to the Arab world, nor seen a picture stone first hand. These carved images show life in Viking times as it really was, cutting out the guesswork - and Gotland in Sweden boasts the greatest number of these in the world. So to truly go Viking, I have to go to Gotland.
An island off the coast of Stockholm, Gotland was a trading hub between east and west during the Viking era, leaving it littered with cultural treasures from the period. But the Swedes, as with everything else, play down their attractions.
On the plane I get talking to a woman who tells me that Gotland has great live music events. ‘But what about the Vikings?’ I ask. She shrugs. ‘So what brings you here?!’ asks the taxi driver who picks me up from Visby airport to drive me to its spectacular walled city and Gotland’s Unesco World Heritage Site.
‘All this…?’ I gesture around, as we pass dramatic raukar – pillars of limestone carved by the current that seem to surge up and out of the sea of their own accord. Or the fine white-sand beaches backed by pine forests that the region is famous for. Or the centuries of history distilled into four insanely Instagrammable square miles of spires and gabled roofs poking out from between tightly packed trees, shrubs and bushes upon bushes of roses that earned Visby it’s nickname: City of Roses.
But my cab driver remains unimpressed as we bump along narrow cobbled streets and weave between medieval houses, half-hidden by climbing roses that give off a floral scent at every turn. The air is crisp and clear; the sky only punctured by the steeples of a stunning 12th century cathedral – built to appease German merchants and now the only surviving medieval church in Visby.
‘And then there’s the Vikings!’ I protest, just as we come to a stop and I am unceremoniously turfed out. Swedes are famed for their lagom (except where hipster beards are concerned…) but I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve overhyped Gotland’s Viking credentials. I needn’t have worried.
Lars Kruthof, the last clean-shaven man in Sweden, welcomes me into Gotlands Museum (gotlandsmuseum.se) and begins my introduction to the island’s history. He’s wearing an impressive pompadour, cuffed blue jeans and what looks like a Viking brooch with interlocking circles and I’m impressed with his dedication to the theme. ‘Is that an original design?’ I ask. ‘This? No, I got it in Estonia…’ ‘Oh.’
It turns out Lars is a museum curator by day and rockabilly fan by night and so travels a lot. ‘But we do have a lot of unique Viking finds in Gotland!’ he promises, hurrying me through the chilly Medieval museum to a room containing a 1,000 year-old skeleton of a woman from Viking times; her (authentic) brooches and box pendant beautifully preserved (also very much still in vogue, might I add…).
‘Gotland’s Vikings were traders,’ explains Lars, ‘they weren’t ‘bloodthirsty’: they were about buying and selling things.’ Like what? ‘Honey,’ is his answer. Less ‘Furious Norsemen’: more Winnie the Pooh. Still, the sticky stuff proved lucrative.
Eighty per cent of all Viking silver hoards in Sweden have been found in Gotland’s flat farmlands - and there’s still likely to be a lot left underground. Lars tells me about a farmer who struck silver under some old floorboards and even a group of school kids who got lucky poking around a rabbit hole. ‘Can we try?’ I ask in spite of myself. I’ve seen The Detectorists! I know the drill... ‘No!’ Lars tells me firmly that these days, excavation is the preserve of professionals: ‘Metal detectors are banned and we even got a guy in jail recently – we caught him selling coins on eBay.’
Understood. Islanders are very protective of their ancestry and are more likely to identify themselves as ‘Gotlanders’ than Swedes. ‘There’s a lot of folklore that’s unique to the Island, too,’ says Lars, explaining how some of the older generations still believe in mythical creatures who live underground: ‘Even now, Gotlanders stamp three times to warn the trolls before they pour water in their garden.’
At this precise moment, a class of schoolchildren thunder in, making the glass cabinets shake. ‘Trolls,’ Lars gives a knowing nod. He grew up with these stories on F?r?, the island off the northernmost tip of Gotland and the place that Ingmar Bergman made his home after filming Through a Glass Darkly there in 1961. I ask Lars if he’s a fan and he tells me casually: ‘Oh yes, he was good to us, growing up,’ apparently teaching local children photography, letting them be in his films and even building a community centre.
‘We looked out for him in return,’ Lars remembers. ‘When American tourists would flood in ever summer asking ‘where’s Ingmar Bergman’s house?’ we’d send them in the wrong direction...’ Bergman stayed on F?r? until he died and there’s now a museum on the island dedicated to his work (bergmancenter.se/in-english/). ‘We still get a lot of tourists on F?r?,’ Lars tells me: ‘– and in Visby. But they often want to see Vikings,’ here he cradles his bare chin, then adds: ‘When that happens, I send them Per’s way.’
Per Widerstrom is a bearded giant with long hair and sea-blue eyes who’s one of only two archaeologists on the island. As such, he’s something of a celebrity. ‘There is a real respect for archaeology in Gotland because of our heritage,’ he says. TV shows like Vikings and Game of Thrones have reignited an interest in all things ancient Norse so that for Gotlanders, ‘archaeologist’ is akin to ‘rock star’.
Per agrees to show me some of the Viking highlights in Gotland’s countryside, but suggests a sartorial rejig first. ‘Are you going to wear those boots?’ I look down at my ‘city girl’ footwear. ‘Err…no?’ Per fetches me some spare wellies he keeps handy for just such an underdressed Viking-wannabe occasion. They are at least two sizes too big but this, apparently, is of no concern.
He also tries to press an extra coat on me since the wind is whipping up. ‘Are you going wear one?’ I ask. He looks down at his plaid shirt and denim jacket combo: ‘No…’ he says, resisting the urge to add, ‘because I’m a Viking’. I politely decline and decide to brave the elements, Viking style, then climb into his muddied 4x4 and we roll out of town.
We pass bucolic countryside punctuated by collections of stones in the shape of a ship – boat-shaped graves intended to help deceased Vikings sail to an afterlife in Valhalla, the majestic golden hall where the god Odin invited anyone deemed worthy to join him and live in bliss. And then we arrive in the middle of actual nowhere - at the ?nge picture stones.
Standing tall at 3.7 meters high, they’re euphemistically described as a ‘mushroom shaped’ (‘or a door to another world, perhaps?’ Per offers doubtfully) but we both know what the extended shaft with a protuberance on top really reminds us of. ‘Or phallic,’ he says with some resignation: ‘a lot of people also say they look rather phallic…’
Attempting to regain some semblance of ‘professional Viking hunter’, I study the carefully carved depiction of life 1,200 years ago, making out a ship with a patterned sail. Picture stones were big, flashy affairs, positioned along major roads to attract as many eyes as possible. ‘It was a way of telling people that your family were very wealthy,’ says Per: ‘- the equivalent of parking a Ferrari in your front drive.’
Originally, the stones would have been intricately painted, though now only the engraving remains. But Per tells me about an curator at the museum in the later 19th century who took matters into his own hands and did some touching up: ‘He couldn’t believe that women had ever been warriors and so repainted every figure that appeared with weapons to make it ‘male’!’
It’s been proven women had weapons in Viking times, but some, it seems, still struggle with the concept. ‘Scandinavia’s most famous female warrior grave at Birka was disputed for years because no one would believe that a woman was such a prized Viking leader – or that a female archaeologist, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, had discovered her,’ Per tells me: ‘they gave her so much stick!’
Thankfully, he assures me, archaeologists and curators are beginning to wise up. And about time. A big part of what attracted me to writing about Viking culture is the way that men and women were both encouraged to be strong and creative – from shield maidens to the emphasis on handicrafts and Viking men being encouraged to take pride in their appearance (Viking wives could divorce husbands for reasons as small as ‘showing too much chest hair’, just FYI…).
The cliches of terrifying types in horned helmets is just part of the mythology that’s grown up around ‘The Fury of the Norsemen’. But the women? They were brave and bold and brilliantly creative and resilient, so I’m relieved to hear they’re finally being recognised.
We drive on to Trullhalsar, a Viking burial site. Stomping in my huge boots through a copse of conifers we come to a large clearing where there are about 350 mounds made up of flat stones arranged neatly in a circle of around a metre in diameter, topped with larger boulders like hundreds of pill boxes. Per is half way through an anecdote about football and telling me, perhaps surprisingly, that he’s ‘a massive Leeds United fan’ when we both fall silent. There’s something about the place that compels calm.
‘Most people can’t help but find it moving here,’ Per tells me in a whisper: ‘I think it’s the effort that has gone into building each burial mound. It’s like, ‘will anyone take this much care when I die?’’ We both take a moment to contemplate this. It’s another ten minutes before he starts up again telling me about a Sheffield Wednesday match he once attended.
Back in Visby I thank Per and go in search of a place to refuel. Gotland is becoming increasingly popular as a foodie destination with seventeen restaurants featuring in Scandinavia’s version of the Michelin guide (whiteguide-nordic.com/), the small and cosy fish restaurant Bakfickan (bakfickanvisby.se/) and a glut of cool cafes. H10 (h10.se/) is an eatery and design collective that’s just as hipster as it sounds but serves a mean soup/sandwich/fika (like hygge but with more coffee).
Here I meet Emelie, a designer for interiors brand G.A.D. (gad.se/butiker/visby/) wearing a paint splattered shirt and heaving plywood walls to give the space a revamp. She pushes flaxen hair out of her face, swigs black coffee, and tells me about her island’s craft culture. ‘There’s a distinct Gotland aesthetic,’ she says: ‘paired back; often grey-scale; and with a lot of hard, bare wood contrasted with soft wools. Maybe it’s something to do with the light here,’ she says, of the high, clear skies that so inspired Bergman. ‘And there’s also the calm,’ she adds: ‘There’s something special about Gotland.’
She’s right. And it’s something that’s closer to my idea of Vikings, living and working together, celebrating strength and self-reliance as well as creativity. ‘I don’t connect with that idea of ‘marauding Vikings’,’ says Emelie, reading my mind: ‘ – this is a peaceful place. We create and we trade and we’re aware of our Viking inheritance but for us it’s just ‘home’. We do what we like to do in Visby and we’re where we like to be.’
And there’s the rub. Gotland’s picture stone past has created a legacy of content, creative yet commercially savvy modern day Vikings, proving that the Norse spirit is still very much alive and well off the coast of mainland Sweden. For anyone in search of adventure, strength, heritage and craftiness, there’s a lot to be said for going Viking in Visby.
Helen Russell is the author of Gone Viking (Ebury; ￡7.99).
How to get there
Helen travelled Best Served Scandinavia (020 7664 2241; best-served.co.uk), who can tailor make holidays across the region. They offer a six day Gotland and Stockholm fly drive holiday from ￡1125pp including return flights from London, three nights b&b accommodation at the Hotel Slottsbacken in Visby, two nights b&b accommodation in Stockholm and three days car hire.
