Explore Visby

St. Catherine's Church Ruin, known in Visby as S:ta Karin, stands on Stora torget, the main square. It was the church of a Franciscan friary founded in 1233, enlarged into a three-aisled hall church with a new choir consecrated in 1391, and abandoned after the Reformation. Its open nave with slender pillars and brick vaults is part of the Visby World Heritage Site.

Visby City Wall is a medieval defensive wall built in two stages in the late 13th and 14th centuries around the Hanseatic town of Visby, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. About 3.4 km of the wall still stands, with 27 large and 9 small towers, gates such as Österport and Norderport, and the older Kruttornet tower at the harbour.

The Gotland Museum is the county museum of Gotland, founded in 1875 by the Friends of Gotland's Antiquity society. Its main building, Fornsalen on Strandgatan in Visby, shows the island's history from the Stone Age onwards, including the Picture Stone Hall with carved Viking-age stones, silver hoards such as the Spillings Hoard, and medieval church sculpture.

Visby Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Mary, was built in the 13th century as the church of the German merchants trading in Visby and was consecrated in 1225. It is the only medieval church in the town still in use and became a cathedral in 1572. Its west tower and two eastern towers carry Baroque spires; inside are furnishings from several centuries.

Almedalen is a park in Visby just outside the medieval city wall, on the site of the town's medieval harbour, which became too shallow as the land rose. Elms were planted in the 1870s and gave the park its name. It has a pond, lawns and a playground, and each summer it hosts the speeches of Almedalen Week, a meeting place for Swedish politics.

St. Nicholas Church Ruin in the north of Visby's old town goes back to a church begun around 1215–1220 and taken over by Dominican friars in the 1220s, who rebuilt it as their friary church; the Gothic choir dates from about 1400. Burned in 1525, it has served since 1929 as a summer stage for concerts and plays. Its west gable has two round rose windows.

Visby Botanical Garden was laid out in 1855 by the society DBW inside the city wall, between the shore and the old town north of Almedalen, and took its present form in the 1930s. Its 2.5 hectares hold tree collections, a rose garden, a herb garden and plants such as fig, mulberry and walnut, with the ivy-covered ruin of St. Olof's church in its southern part.