Student blogs

Hello again guys,

This year, the first-year Biomedicine (Master’s) students had an official self-study period from December 19^th until January 6^th,but it was really from December 17^th to January 13th. This means we stopped having lectures in mid-December, but we had an exam for the second part of our course, Frontiers in Translational Medicine, on January 14^th. Therefore, technically we do not have a “winter holiday” but if you organize yourself, you can still have a few weeks that you can count as “free-time”.

In normal times, I would imagine most people go back home to celebrate the holidays, but of course, this year, with all the travel restrictions, was different. For example, I had to stay in Sweden and celebrate here. My sister was able to come here and we decided to spend New years in Visby.

One of the reasons why we chose this town was because there are way less people there than in Stockholm. So, it was very easy to follow public health recommendations and mainly visit outdoor places 🙂

It was a really fun and calm weekend trip. Visby is such a charming place!

What is Visby?

Visby is a Swedish town that is also a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its very well-preserved medieval ruins. It is a popular summer destination as well! (but we went during winter and it was still very beautiful)

Where is Visby? How do you get there?

Visby is located in Gotland, a big Swedish island. You can get there in 3 hours and a half by ferry, departing from the port of Nynäshamn. You can get to this port by taking the pendeltag from Stockholm C/T-Centralen and it takes about 40 minutes. So in total is a bit over 4 hours from Stockholm.

Things to do

Well, first of all, Visby is a really cute town, so just admiring the views should be on your list if you do decide to visit. And then you can see the Visby Town Wall, the Botanical Garden, the Almedalen, the St. Nicolai ruin, Galgberget, the Gotland museum (closed right now though) and more! Just walking around the town, you will get to see a lot of really cool ruins. Usually there will be signs near the ruins so you can read more about their history.

I would love to visit it again!