Gotland has had a pretty torrid time of things throughout history. For a small island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, it’s seen a lot of unnecessary massacres. Or rather, because it’s a small island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. From the Swedish crown, to the Danish crown, from the Hanseatic League to the Kalmar Union, everyone wanted not just a slice of Gotland but the whole shebang.
I discovered a lot of disturbing things in the Gotland Museum today. Things that mostly involved plaque and death and war. It’s not a happy little history.
Though, to be fair, it was pretty good about 420 million years ago, before humans decided to pollute the planet with pointless fights over whose god had bigger balls and whose king had deeper pockets that needed filling.
At that time, Gotland was somewhere slightly south of the equator and was, basically, a reef. This was during the Silurian Period which, once upon a time, was called the Gotlandian Period. Why they changed the name, I don’t know. A bit like Istanbul, I guess.
Anyway, I was enjoying looking at the fossils from this period when a chap with a big, heavy camera entered the room. He was with two women wearing masks who had the ability to talk in high-pitched, screechy voices without drawing breath and with high decibel volumes. I swear that this massive hunk of rock and fossils split apart when they started discussing it.
While they tried destroying as many eardrums as possible, the man started snapping away at every object and poster on display. He was like a madman. I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually see anything in real life: it was all through his lens.
While mildly irritating when he needed to brush me aside, this may have been okay if he wasn’t using a flash. I mean, seriously, who still uses a flash in a museum? It’s a tad off putting.
But, enough of that! The day was beautiful, bright and happy with plenty of medieval people floating about and a great hoard of Italian food to devour. A bit like the Starvars Hoard found in 1975 by a bunch of very honest school kids.
They found it in a rabbit hole in Burs Parish, though what they were doing in the rabbit hole is not chronicled. The pot was deposited there in the 10th century and contains a lot of Arabic coins. It clearly predates Swish.
The Italian food came courtesy of a lovely restaurant just across the cobbled road from the Gotland Museum. It’s called Amici Belli and the food is great. Though, a little word of warning. The charcuterie plate, while delicious, is rather big for an entrée for one. Shared between two is okay but, it’s probably better for four over beers.
But don’t let that put you off. The pasta is fab and the beer perfectly cold on a hot day. Which it was. Perfectly hot, I mean. Well, apart from the brief rainy spell, we managed to avoid by being inside the museum when it arrived.
The heat was pretty intense when it came time for us to climb back up to the city gate where we’d left the car. I felt a bit sorry for the people dressed up in their heavy woollen outfits.
Still, they looked pretty good and, to be honest, it felt like we were wandering around in a real medieval town. That became even more real later when we headed for the festival arena for the big Medieval Tournament.
But this post has gone on a bit too long. Part two is coming shortly…
