"Magic island" a Gotland Travel Page by Sjalen

Gotland is Sweden's biggest island, and a county all on its own. In the tourist brochures, it is marketed to the rest of us as "Sweden abroad" and that is not far from the truth, as Gotland is not typically Swedish. Here, houses are limestone whitewashed instead of wooden red, the cows are replaced by sheep and the mentality is friendly but with a dry sense of humour that comes with living on an island away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the country. Add to this a bit of pride, since Gotland has an incredible amount of history, both living and past, and you end up with an island which will never cease to fascinate you.

I went here for the first time in August 2007 and it was so good I had to come back for New Year to a more quiet but equally lovely island. Let's see if I ever upload those gorgeous winter pics.

Administratively, Gotland is a peculiar place as the whole island is run as one single municipality and at the same time it is its own county. This frequently means that the County administrators know municipality people and discussions are perhaps a tad too biased when it comes to nature reserves and so on where the County council could stop developments but instead follow the municipality when they want to give all sorts of permissions to local businessmen instead.

This united administration also shows itself in that when you speak of people on Gotland you mention the parish they come from rather than a municipality or village. But then again this is hardly surprising as the island has 92 medieval churches to be proud of!