When you think of Visby, your mind probably drifts to roses, ruins, and medieval magic- and rightly so. But one of the most quietly breathtaking parts of this ancient town has nothing to do with knights or cathedrals. It goes much further back. Thousands of years back, in fact.
Just outside the city lies the Visby Ice Age Trail, a meandering path through rugged, story-rich terrain shaped by the last great glaciation. While tourists marvel at towers and stone gates, this trail invites you to look down… to the grooves in the limestone, the ancient boulders known as “erratics,” and the ridged moraines left behind as the massive ice sheets retreated.
This is pre-history you can touch.
During the last Ice Age, Gotland was buried under kilometers of ice. As the glacier moved, it scoured and scraped the landscape, pushing rocks across the island, gouging valleys, and pressing the earth into new forms. When it melted, some 10,000 years ago- it left behind a raw, textured land, scarred but beautiful.
The Ice Age Trail follows these scars. Along the way, you’ll find markers explaining the formations, ancient coastal cliffs, and views where the land still seems to be shaking off its icy past.
Why I’m Excited:
For me, walking this trail is about more than geology. It’s about time: deep, humbling, planetary time. As someone connected to Gotland through DNA (hello VK429 and VK58!), it’s surreal to imagine that this same land supported both glaciers and Vikings, and now, me.
In Visby, even the dirt tells stories. The stones underfoot aren’t just part of the landscape… they’re the prologue. And I can’t wait to read it one step at a time.
It’s also a reminder that Visby isn’t just built on medieval foundations- it’s built on a story written in stone. And while castles crumble and walls fall, the Earth remembers everything. This trail isn’t dramatic or crowded, but it offers something rarer: silence, scale, and a little bit of perspective.
I’ll be walking it in August, probably getting windblown and feeling incredibly small in the best possible way.
Swedish Wanderlust 