Visby, Sweden

I arrived in Visby, Sweden a few hours ago and have already found the city to be amazing. It is on the Island of Gotland which is East of mainland Sweden. I am staying in the heart of the old city which is still surrounded by a wall that, as far as I have seen so far, is still fully standing. The wall was built in the 12th century and many of the original buildings and churches still exist as well.

What I found most interesting are the ruins. There are several churches that were abandoned in the 16th century. The walls still stand but roofs were destroyed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visby


This is a picture of the wall with the opening (the small arch) I drove through to enter the old city. I am standing outside of the wall when taking this picture. The opening were not built for cars but thankfully, they do barely fit.

Picture of the coast

A cool old building

Ruins of St. Katarina

Looking inside St. Katarina Church

Just another cool building, typical medieval construction

A cool small ally with an arch. The arch itself is actually a dwelling.

Ruins of St. Hans

More of St. Hans

Ruins of St. Lars

Inside St. Lars

West side of St. Drottens

More of the West side of St. Drottens

The East side of St. Drottens

(I have some other pictures but will just post these for now. I took the opportunity to have Sunday dinner at a local sports bar. I know it's the sabbath but a man's gotta eat and it was the first place I ran into that served food I understood. It was named O'Leary's. The story is that in the mid 80s, a man moved from Sweden to Boston and fell in love with the sports bar atmosphere as well as a local Botston woman. Soon after marrying, they moved to Gotland and opened a Botson-style sports bar in the middle of medieval Visby. They have since opened several locations but they all have the Boston feeling. I tell the story because though I have never been in a sports bar before today, As I sat there eating my BBQ Baby Back Ribs, I felt like I was back in the U.S. (except for the fact that all the TVs were showing soccer instead of football, basketball or baseball).

Prague

I was in Prague on business March 16th - March 29th. Kristal came to join me on the 26th and we were able to see much of Prague 'old town' as well as the 'lessor town'. Here are some pictures followed by a slideshow including most of the pictures we took. Click on any picture to see it bigger.
Charles Bridge


A view of the Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge. The cathedral you see in the distance is within the castle walls.

A view of 'lessor town' at the end of the Charles Bridge

Within the walls of the castle in front of the Cathedral

Powder Tower. There are 13 towers which served as town gates throughout Prague. This one was built in 1478.


A couple street views near the center of Prague

Old Town Square, looking at the clock tower which also has the Astronomical clock as seen below.

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Old Town Square

Again...Old Town Square

The Astronomical clock at the base of the clock tower


Here is an interesting sculpture.


The Prague Church

and sign

The metro was very deep. Here is the stairs leading down. I had already been on it for about 10 feet before I took this. It took over a minute by escalator just to get to the bottom.